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T H K 



WAR II THE EAST. 



THE RIGHT REV. HORATIO SOUTHGATE, D. D, 

l » 

Id? JEfeionani Sfejlip at Constantinople, 







1876. 

of WASl 
Weto*¥orft: 
PUDNEY &, RUSSELL. 

MDCCCLIV. 









c^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, 

By Pudney & Russell, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
States for the Southern District of New-York. 



PREFACE 



The first of these Essays is reprinted from 
the Churchman, with corrections and additions 
The second is entirely new. The writer consid- 
ers the subject mainly in its bearings upon the 
interests of the Oriental Churches; but, in so 
doing, he has occasion to evolve the leading 
principles of the controversy, and to discuss 
some of its most important incidents. 



I. 

THE QUESTION AT ISSUE, 

March, 1S54. 



In order to understand the question at 
issue between the Empires of Russia and 
Turkey, we must go back through a period 
of 300 years. It was originally a question, 
not between a Christian and a Mohamme- 
dan power, but between the two great 
branches of the Christian Church, the Ori- 
ental and the Western, or rather the Greek 
and the Latin. We will not go into a full 
sketch of the history of the controversy 
respecting the Holy Places, as the scenes of 
our Saviour's life and sufferings in and 
about Jerusalem are called. It will be 
enough for our present purpose, to indicate 
that from the time when Helena and her 
son, CONSTANTINB the Great, built the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, 
1* 



and that of the Nativity at Bethlehem, 
until now, the guardianship of those sacred 
shrines, and of others that have since risen 
in hardly less memorable localities, has 
been, at different periods, harshly, not to 
say fiercely, contested between the Greeks 
and Latins. At one time the Latins held 
possession of them for a long interval. At 
another, by treaty between Fbancis I. 
and Suleiman the Magnificent, they were 
placed under the protection of France ; and 
at another, by capitulations between the 
Sultan and Louis XIV., they were restored 
to that protection. This seems to have 
been in 1673. In 1757 they were brought 
back to the Greeks ; and we cannot discover 
that any change has been made from that 
time tiil the year 1850. There can be no 
reasonable question that they belong of 
right to the Eastern Church, both because 
their original foundation and first possession 
were Oriental, and because they fall within 
the Dioceses of Oriental Bishops. But the 
question has never ceased to be a bone of 
contention between the Greeks and the 
Latins, even when treaties and conventions 
had clearly, for the time being, vested the 
guardianship in one or the other. In Louis 
Philippe's reign, an attempt was^made to 
settle these disputed claims, but it was in- 
terrupted by the Syrian war of 1840, and 
was* not resumed till 1850. Then, by com- 



mission from Louis Napoleon, at that 
time President of France, the Marquis de 
Lavalette proceeded to Constantinople, 
via Rome, with instructions to demand the 
definite restoration of the guardianship of 
several of the most important of the Holy 
Places to the Latin Church. We cannot 
explain the extraordinary conduct of the 
Porte under those circumstances, without 
letting our reader into the secret of its 
habitual policy towards the European Pow- 
ers ; and this we will do in the words of an 
eminent official of the Ottoman Government, 
himself a Christian, which he once used to 
us on an occasion when a matter of great 
importance to the interests of the Church 
in the East was under discussion. " If you 
would have," he said, " a thread to guide 
you through all the labyrinth of Turkish 
policy, you must take this single fact: The 
invariable rule of the Porte, in all its deal- 
ings with the European Powers, and even 
in its professed reforms at home, is to stand 
well with Europe. It has no other 
principle of action. Dependent as it is on 
those powers for its preservation, for its 
very life, it sacrifices everything to its 
European reputation. Hence those un- 
measured efforts, paid for by the Porte 
itself, to give it a good name in the Euro- 
pean Press. You have no true statement of 
things in your newspapers. The facts are 



created, or at least put into shape, here, ac- 
cording to the pleasure of the Turkish Gov- 
ernment. Hence they are poured into the 
French and English Gazettes, and thence 
they percolate into your American Jour- 
nals. It is all made up for the Western 
market, and in this way you seldom learn 
the real condition of things." We believe 
this statement to be a true one, because it 
entirely accords with our own experience 
and observation, during a residence of four- 
teen years in Turkey. 

It follows from this view, that the system 
of the Turkish Government is a system of 
patchwork. There are no homogeneous 
principles running through it. At one 
time a rent occurs in some vexatious ques- 
tion which has arisen between it and some 
European Power. On such an occasion the 
Porte does not go back to any first princi- 
ple. It covers up the rent with the first 
convenient patch that is at hand. It ac- 
commodates itself to the necessities of the 
case, and gets over the difficulty as it best 
may, trusting to its good luck to meet 
future contingencies by future expedients. 
At another time it has to retract what it 
has done. Then it throws the odium upon 
the ministers, turns them out of office, puts 
in a new set, and gracefully retraces its 
steps. 

Thus, in the question of the Holy Places, 



its policy has been, vacillating from the 
beginning, sometimes yielding to one Eu- 
ropean influence, sometimes to another. 
Suleiman yielded to Francis I. the Pro- 
tectorate of the Holy Places. The Greeks 
succeeded in reversing the decree. Louis 
XIY. demanded a restoration. After a 
period the Greeks regained possession; — 
while minor contests have been going on 
from time to time, in which Turkey has 
always succumbed to the Power that was 
pressing the hardest at the moment ; and 
when that ceased and the other retaliated, 
she has abandoned the first, and yielded to 
the second. Thus, in 1850, she had granted 
to Eussia a Firman establishing the status in 
quo ; that is, she had determined and decreed 
that the Greeks should remain in possession 
of the Holy Places which they then held. 
In 1850, the Marquis de Lavalette came, 
and he came with threatening orders from 
the Court of the Imperial President, who 
was then rapidly expanding the germ of 
his despotic power. For a moment we go 
from fact to probable conjecture. The Mar- 
quis visited Eome on his way, and had an 
interview with the Pope. Louis Napo- 
leon had need of the Pope's assistance in 
some of his designs. He has need of it 
still. The Marquis de Lavalette was in- 
structed (this is our conjecture) to negotiate 
with the Pope the terms upon which his 



10 

master should have the countenance of His 
Holiness in his political proj ects. The Pope 
bargained for the Protectorate of the Holy 
Places. Here ends conjecture, and facts 
again begin. The Marquis did come to 
Constantinople. He did put in a claim for 
the restoration of the Holy Places to the 
Latins. He did enforce that claim by certain 
severe threats. He did assert for France an 
ancient Protectorate of the Holy Land. He 
carried all before him. His violence and 
denunciation succeeded in obtaining from 
the Porte a Firman transferring to the Lat- 
ins the guardianship of the most important of 
the Holy Places. It is here that Eussia first 
appears upon the field ; and she appears as 
the Champion of the Eastern Church. She 
interposed her powerful veto. She insisted 
upon the execution of the Firman previously 
granted to her. She, too, threatened ; and 
in the eyes of Turkey her threats are big- 
ger than those of France. She, too, suc- 
ceeded ; and the Porte, following its usual 
policy, sent secret orders to Syria that the 
Firman granted to France should not be 
executed. It was not executed ; and the 
Marquis de Lavalette, who had gone 
home to report his victory and to reap his 
reward, was obliged to hasten back to Con- 
stantinople to re-adjust the disturbed bal- 
ance, and to resuscitate his dishonored Fir- 
man. This he succeeded in doing, and 



11 

Eussia found herself again balked by the 
Imperial President. 

At this point, comes in the mission of 
Menschikoff. He was a special Envoy on 
the part of Russia, as Lavalette had been 
on the part of France. Undoubtedly, his 
first instructions were to adjust the question 
of the guardianship of the Holy Places. 
We think there is reason to believe that, at 
the first, these were his only instructions. 
At least, if he had others, they were held in 
reserve. He came to Constantinople with 
a great display of power and pride. The 
Czar knows well how to deal with the Sultan. 
The noise of navies reviewed, and camps vis- 
ited, of deadly preparations for war, of arma- 
ments gathering in the Crimea, was a fitting 
preliminary to the message which he had to 
bear. He entered Constantinople, as it were, 
in triumph, as the Ambassador of Louis 
XIV. did, when he came armed with the 
same demand. He was escorted by the 
Greek clergy, — a sufficient indication of the 
esteem in which the Greek Church held 
this mission of MENSCHIKOFF — a sufficient 
answer, let us add, to the idle and improba- 
ble reports that the Greeks are unfavora- 
ble to the demands of Russia. He refused 
to recognize the Reis Effendi, or Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, who, as he alleged, had 
deceived his master the Emperor, in the 
matter of the Firmans. He demanded a 



12 

full restoration. Here France yielded. 
Louts Napoleon doubtless saw that a con- 
test with Eussia would cost more than the 
Protectorate of the Holy Places and the 
friendship of the Pope would gain for him. 
He renounced the acts of his Ambassador, 
replaced him by a man of milder qualities, 
and yielded to the re-establishment of the sta- 
tus in quo ante helium, the condition of things 
which prevailed before this war of diploma- 
tic papers began. 

Thus far the mission of Menschikoff 
was successful. He gained that which ap- 
parently he came for. But he did not re- 
turn. He remained at Constantinople, and 
the rumor soon arose that he was pressing 
other and more important demands. Amidst 
the smoke of surmise, and doubt, and con- 
jecture, we could not for a time see the 
truth. At last it came out, distinctly and 
in bold relief, that he had asked of Turkey 
the Protectorate of the Greek Christians, 
and that the Sultan refused thus to sign 
away his sovereignty. Now, it is a matter 
of no importance, that we know of, to our 
readers, individually and personally, whether 
Menschikoff made this precise demand or 
not ; and, if he did make it, whether it was 
a just demand or not. This, we say, is of 
no importance to us personally. But it is 
of some importance, if we wish to interest 
ourselves in the question, and to learn the 



13 



truth respecting it, that we should free our- 
selves from every undue bias, and be pre- 
pared to look at the right in the case, steadi- 
ly and with unjaundiced eye. We think 
the demand of Russia was a just one, and 
ought to have been granted ; and if our 
readers will have patience with us, we will 
endeavor to make this position as clear to 
their minds as it is to our own. 

We have little information of the grounds 
upon which Prince Menschikoff urged 
his demand. But we do know two things : 
first, what was the precise character of the 
demand ; and secondly, what was the nature 
of -the stipulation which he required con- 
cerning it. He did not demand formally 
that Russia should be acknowledged as the 
Protector of the Greek Christians, subjects 
of the Sultan. He did, demand that Tur- 
key should pledge herself, by convention 
with Russia, that the ancient immunities and 
privileges of the Greek Church should be secur- 
ed to it for all time to come. This was the 
demand precisely. It did not make Russia 
in form the Protector of the Greek Church ; 
but it made her so virtually and in reality ; 
since, the Convention |being made with Rus- 
sia as a treaty stipulation, she could at all 
times call for the fulfilment of it, and any 
violation of the ancient privileges of the 
Greek Church would be a violation of a 
compact with Russia. Still, the want of a 
2 



14 

formal recognition of Russia as Protector, 
and under that name, is a fact of importance, 
as we will presently endeavor to show. 

Of the second point, — the nature of the 
contract which Russia required of Turkey, 
— it is enough to say, that Prince Mexschi- 
koff repeatedly lowered his demand : first, 
requiring a Treaty, the highest form of diplo- 
matic contract ; next, if we rightly remem- 
ber, a Yezirial Letter, in which the Grand 
Vezir becomes the contracting party in be- 
half of the Sultan ; and, finally, a Note from 
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the lowest 
form of engagement into which Turkey 
ever enters. Each of these was an import- 
ant concession, as each one brought down 
the solemnity and momentous character of 
the stipulation to a lower order of engage- 
ment ; as, for example, the honor of the 
Empire would be* less seriously damaged 
by a future violation of a compact which 
stood only in the name of the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, than of one, like the first 
proposed, which was issued in the name of 
Majesty. If it be urged that, after all, it 
is a distinction without a difference, that 
Russia would compel Turkey, as she cer- 
tainly would, to abide by her contract, 
whether it were in the Minister's name or 
in the Sultan's, it is enough to reply, that 
Turkey herself places a high estimate of 
-difference upon these different forms of 



15 



political compact, and that her whole histo- 
ry shows that she has very different senses 
of obligation respecting them. A Xote 
from the Foreign Department is, in fact, one 
of her most ordinary and approved modes 
of temporary expedients ; and it generally 
remains in force as long as the Minister who 
gave it remains in office. Having had 
much experience in observing the courses 
of Turkish policy, we should say that the 
ISTote last demanded by Prince Menschi- 
koff was an utterly useless paper, except- 
ing so far as Russia might have it in her 
power, from time to time, to enforce the 
fulfilment of it. The reader will see pre- 
sently why we have attached so much im- 
portance to this matter of form. 

TTe have said that but little is known to 
us of the grounds upon which Prince Men- 
schikoff enforced his claims. But the 
veil of diplomatic secrecy has been raised 
in one or two places, and given us an op- 
portunity to catch a glimpse at the work- 
ings within. The first argument (which 
also sets forth the immediate occasion of 
making the demand) was, that, whereas the 
Porte had deceived Russia repeatedly in 
the matter of the Firmans relating to the 
Holy Places, the Emperor could no longer 
rely upon so insufficient a guarantee of the 
rights of the Greek Church, but would re- 
quire a stipulation by Treaty that these 



16 



rights should not hereafter be invaded. 
Here comes in the gist of the question. 
How could Eussia demand any such com- 
pact from the Sultan with reference to the 
government of his own subjects? Was it 
not an arbitrary stretch of power, a viola- 
tion of international law, an impertinence, 
and an insult, thus to require another Na- 
tion to promise that it would rule any por- 
tion of its people after a certain rule or 
mode ? It certainly appears so — it certain- 
ly is so, viewing the question as now aris- 
ing for the first time between Eussia and 
Turkey, and viewing the sovereignty of 
Turkey as standing till now unimpaired 
towards all foreign nations. But if it shall 
appear that that sovereignty, of which so 
much has been said in a tone as of deep 
sympathy for the oppressed, is a thing of 
unreality, which Turkey does not pretend to 
sustain towards other Powers ; if it be pro- 
ved that Eussia demands no more of her 
than she has voluntarily granted, and still 
grants, to others ; — the question, it seems to 
us, comes to wear a different aspect, espe- 
cially if it can be shown that the Eussian 
demand is intended to counterbalance a spe- 
cific grant made by the Sultan in the op- 
posite direction. If it shall appear that 
what Eussia asks for the Greek Church 
is no more than has been allowed to anoth- 
er European nation in behalf of another 



17 



portion of the Sultan's Christian subjects, 
then, upon the terms of the lowest style of 
international Treaties, those which regulate 
commerce, Eussia. whom, in common with 
the other European Powers and our. own 
Government, Turkey has promised to treat 
on the footing of the most favored Na- 
tions, has a right to demand that the same 
concession be made to her. If Turkey has 
ceded away her sovereignty to one Europe- 
an Power, in a manner that injuriously 
affects Russia, and particularly endangers 
the welfare of that portion of the Sultan's 
Christian subjects which is most closely 
bound to Eussia by the ties of religion, the 
Emperor has surely a right to require that 
that injury be prevented, that danger be 
removed, by corresponding and counter- 
balancing grants to her ; and if those grants 
are demanded in a form much less stringent 
and imposing than that in which a similar 
grant has been made to another European 
Power, Eussia may even declare, as she 
does declare, that her course is one of mild- 
ness and moderation. Now, ail that is sup- 
posed under these hypotheses, we expect to 
make clear to the reader, as positive and 
palpable facts, before we close. 

As so much has been said of the sover- 
eignty and independence of Turkey in the 
eyes of the world, and of the unjust and 
robber-like invasion of it by Eussia, it is 
2* 



18 



well, it is necessary, for a full, or even calm, 
consideration of the question at issue, that 
we should see precisely the position in 
which this alleged, sovereignty and inde- 
pendence stand. Every American heart 
must beat in quick sympathy with the pulsa- 
tions of a rational freedom throughout the 
world ; and it is not too much to say that 
the thought of an invasion of Turkish in- 
dependence on the part of Russia has 
awakened that general glow of interest in 
the fate of Turkey which beams from the 
press, which pervades political circles, 
which appears in the familiar gossip of the 
fireside, which you see in children at 
school, and which even, the most remarka- 
ble phenomenon of all, gives its hue and 
coloring to the articles of our Church 
Journals. It is not too much to say that 
this interest is so strong as to suppress or 
keep out of sight the fact that the Govern- 
ment of Turkey is as pure and more excep- 
tionable a despotism than that of Russia, 
and that hundreds, and thousands, and 
millions of our fellow-Christians sigh and 
groan there under a bondage which their 
fathers have felt for centuries ;— a bondage 
which denies them all religious freedom ; 
making our common Christianity a reproach 
and a by- word ; allowing it to exist only by 
the payment of an odious tribute; degrad- 
ing every one who professes it below the 



19 



level of his Mussulman fellow-subjects ; giv- 
ing him necessarily and universally a low- 
er place in the social scale: denying him 
the most common rights of a citizen, such, 
for example, as prosecuting at law if the 
offender against him be a Mussulman, since 
no Christian's testimony is available against 
a Mohammedan's ; not allowing him to build 
Churches, excepting on old sites, thus effec- 
tually preventing the increase of Churches ; 
not allowing even the rebuilding, nor even 
the repairing, on old sites, without a special 
authorization of the Sultan, in whatever 
part of the Empire it may be, however dis- 
tant from the Capital, entailing oftentimes 
the necessity of long journeys to Constan- 
tinople to procure the Firman, and an ex- 
pense in doing it sometimes greater than 
the whole cost of rebuilding the Church 
from the foundation : — such things as these, 
mere fragments and hints, as we give them, 
of the vast and gloomy picture of the con- 
dition of Christianity in Turkey, yet hints 
tfcat might well awaken every American 
feeling into intense liveliness, are forgotten, 
suppressed, kept out of sight, in the sym- 
pathy that has been aroused for an old, 
effete, decaying system of government, 
which we are pleased to call Turkish sov- 
ereignty and independence, and which can 
only be sustained that it may continue to 
practise upon Christianity the abominations 



20 



which, it has been working for the last four 
centuries. But its end is at hand, if there 
is any truth in political signs, any sure 
forereading of prophecy, any justice among 
the Nations of the earth ; and no one, we 
are sure, can have studied, as we have 
studied, its dealings towards Christianity in 
the past, its present cruel and outrageous 
treatment of it, which springs necessarily 
from the very theory and genius of Moham- 
medanism, and must continue while Moham- 
medanism exists and preserves its essential 
character — no one, we say, who has so 
studied, can see it fall without thanking 
God that there has vanished from the face 
of the earth one of the most appalling sys- 
tems of error, delusion, and cruelty that our 
holy religion has ever had to encounter. 

But let us look a little closer, and moder- 
ately and calmly, at this chimera of Turk- 
ish sovereignty and independence. If there 
were anything of respectability about it ; if 
Turkey were now for the first time defending 
national rights which had never been invad- 
ed ; if she were preserving the virgin fame 
of her independence untainted ; it would be 
impossible, vicious and degraded as is her 
system of government, it would be impos- 
sible, not to feel some glow of sympathy in 
her fate. But when one looks at her, as 
she indeed is, as decayed and corrupt, and 
sees that she has had no sovereignty, for 



21 



the last quarter of a century, which has not 
been attainted in every part ; when he sees 
that she has long since resigned it, bartered 
it for the protection of the European Pow- 
ers, and that it is a shadow and a name; 
however much he may at times feel indig- 
nant at the insults which are heaped upon 
her by the Governments of Europe, and 
hardly more by one than by another — he 
cannot but see, that in her prevarications, 
her shiftings, her falsehood, first to one and 
then to another, her sacrifice of all lofty 
and ennobling considerations, in her truck- 
ling to European prejudice — he cannot but 
see, in all this, a loss of that dignity and 
respectability which make national sover- 
eignty and independence something more 
than a phantom. 

There is uo Christian Government, not 
eren our own, which treats Turkey as sov- 
ereign and independent. Since the battle 
of Xavarino, she has not only existed by 
European sufferance, but has been govern- 
ed bv European dictation. Each one of 
the Eive Great Powers is free to exercise its 
dictatorship not only in matters affecting- 
its own interests, but in affairs purely 
Turkish, and in the interior administration 
of the Government. Hardly a day passes 
that the Porte does not receive from some 
one or other of those Powers, in some shape 
or other, opinions and representations with 



22 

regard to its conduct, which it dares not 
neglect ; and these opinions and representa- 
tions ofttimes conveyed in language which 
one friend would hardly venture to use to 
another. This has especially been true 
since the compact of 1841, when, after the 
Syrian war, after the united Powers of Eu- 
rope had prevented Mohammed Ali from 
reaching the throne of Turkey when naught 
else than their opposition stood in his way, 
they agreed that the integrity of Turkey 
should be preserved, and that she should 
be taken under their united tutelage. 
From that time to this Turkey has been un- 
der tutors and governors ; and a nation un- 
der tutors and governors is neither sover- 
eign nor independent. This is a very impor- 
tant view in our present discussiou, because 
it serves to put the conduct of Eussia in its 
true light, whether that light be a more or 
less amiable one. 

We have said that even our own Govern- 
ment does not recognize the sovereignty of 
Turkey. We will give an illustration of 
our meaning. We suppose that there is no 
prerogative of sovereignty more clear and 
undoubted than the right of a Nation to ex- 
ecute its laws over all, and on all, who re- 
side within its territory. This does not 
Turkey. No European Nation, nor the 
American Government, allows the Govern- 
ment of Turkey to administer justice to 



23 



any one of its citizens found in any delict 
in the Ottoman Empire. If an American 
robs, or burns, or murders, though it be 
against one of the Sultan's own subjects, he 
is not subjected to the execution of the laws 
of Turkey. He is delivered up to the Min- 
ister of the United States. Or rather, he is 
ordinarily allowed to go at large; for the 
Porte will seldom trouble itself to catch cul- 
prits whom it is not at liberty to punish. 
Hence it arises that there is probably no 
Capital on the face of the earth where crime 
is committed with so great impunity as in 
Constantinople. It is the sewer of Europe, 
into which the offscourings of the European 
cities, refugees from justice, blackguards, 
gamblers, and murderers, are poured in reek- 
ing profusion. They rob, they murder, they 
burn houses, either with perfect impunity, 
or, at least, beyond the power of the Turk- 
ish Government to interfere. Any one 
who has lived in the Frank quarter of Con- 
stantinople, and has felt the necessity of 
guarding his house against the inroads of 
thieves whom he cannot punish if he catch- 
es them ; who knows not but that it may 
be burnt down over his head, by fellows 
who can afford to do it for sport or plunder, 
because they are almost sure to do it with 
impunity, so difficult is it for a Foreign 
Minister to adjudicate the case, even if the 
Turks seize the offender, unless he has from 



24 

his government, as we believe our Minister 
now has, a special grant of judicial power ; 
who fears to walk in the street at night un- 
attended, since, in the most public places, 
he is liable to be robbed without redress; 
— such a one is little likely to feel any over- 
degree of respect for a sovereignty which 
allows these things to pass uncensured, be- 
cause it has resigned the right of punishing 
crime in its own dominions, if so be that 
the crime is committed by a foreigner. 

We might illustrate this subject very 
much at length, and adduce other instances 
in which our own Government, perhaps al- 
most from necessity, has followed the ex- 
ample of European Governments, in not 
treating Turkey as a sovereign and inde- 
pendent Power ; while to those Govern- 
ments it has been, at least for the last 
twelve years, by its own voluntary conces- 
sions, a very vassal and bond-slave. This 
may not altogether excuse Eussia, in her 
late attempt upon Turkish sovereignty; 
but it is something for her to be able to 
show that she is doing no worse than her 
neighbors are doing ; and it is still more 
for her to show that she asks for herself no 
more than is granted to others. This latter 
point we will now proceed to prove. 

In the year 1844, (subsequent to the Eu- 
ropean compact of 1841,) the Governments 
of England and France united in a demand 



25 

upon the Sultan, that he should abrogate 
the Mohammedan law which requires that 
a man apostatizing from Mohammedanism 
shall be put to death. We will not carry the 
reader through the long controversy that 
ensued. It will suffice to say that the Porte 
evaded, by every device in its power, the 
execution of the demand. It represented 
to these great Powers that the law in ques- 
tion was a fundamental law of the Empire ; 
that it was a law of their religion, with 
which the Government could not interfere ; 
that it was based upon a decree of Moham- 
med, whom they believed to be an inspired 
prophet ; that it was, therefore, in their es- 
timation, a revealed law of Deity ; that if 
they should attempt to abrogate it, the re- 
ligious orders would rise in rebellion and 
incite the common people, over whom they 
had unbounded sway, to tumult and insur- 
rection. But in vain. England and France 
were inexorable; and the result was, that 
on the 21st of March, 1844, the Sultan him- 
self, in his own hand-writing, promised 
that the law should no more be executed. 
Compare this now with the present conduct 
of Eussia. She does not ask that any law 
be abrogated, but only that the ancient and 
acknowledged immunities and rights of the 
Greek Church be secured to it in the future, 
by a written pledge. She does not ask that 
the royal word be given. She will be satis- 
3 



26 



fied with, a simple Note from the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs. If she is thereby bring- 
ing attaint to the sovereignty of Turkey, 
what have England and France been doing ? 
They are the acknowledged Protectors of 
all who choose to abandon Islamism. In 
like manner, and still more recently, Eng- 
land has demanded that the Porte recog- 
nize as a separate sect that portion of its 
subjects who have chosen to leave the 
Mother Churches of the East and call them- 
selves " Protestants," and she has succeed- 
ed in the demand. The fact has been pro- 
claimed, with much of congratulation, in 
this country, and the thanks of the princi- 
pal Missionary Board in the United States 
have been rendered to the British Ambas- 
sador for his efforts. These are but illus- 
trations, specimens by the way, of the sov- 
ereignty of Turkey, as exercised in matters 
cognate with that which is now in question. 
They may show, at least, with how much 
of grace England and France can talk of 
sustaining the independence of the Sultan 
against the encroachments of his Northern 
neighbor, and with how much of consist- 
ency wise men among ourselves are ready 
to excite a crusade, with the Cross reversed, 
for the support of the Great Mohammedan 
Power of the East. 

But we have not yet reached the true 
strength of Kussia's argument. We will 



27 



introduce it by an illustration. In the year 
1841, the writer was the guest, for a few 
weeks, of the Syrian Patriarch, in his Mon- 
astery on the confines of Mesopotamia. He 
treated us with great courtesy, and com- 
mended to our attention a question which 
had arisen between him and a sect of 
seceders who had left his Church and joined 
the Eomish Communion. A large amount 
of valuable Church property near Damas- 
cus had been seized by them, and he had 
commenced a suit at the Porte for the pur- 
pose of recovering possession of it. The 
property was an endowment of the Syrian 
Church ; and the titles by which it was held 
were as clear and strong as any titles to 
property can be imagined to be. The 
seceders had got possession of it, and were 
using it for their own purposes, and espe- 
cially for the purpose of extending their sect 
in Syria. We promised him such assist- 
ance as we might be able to render at Con- 
stantinople, and on our return took the mat- 
ter in hand. There was then there a Syrian 
Bishop, who represented the Patriarch in 
the controversy, and urged the claims of 
the Syrian Church before the Porte. The 
question lingered in a manner altogether 
unexpected. The Porte acknowledged the 
justice of the Syrian cause. The docu- 
ments laid before it were too clear to admit 
a reasonable doubt. But still it hesitated 



28 

to accord judgment. We were convinced 
that some hostile influence was in opera- 
tion. Upon inquiry, it was found that the 
French Ambassador was opposed to a set- 
tlement, and was using his influence at the 
. Porte to prevent it. We advised the Bish- 
op to protest against this interference of a 
foreign Power in a question which concern- 
ed only two parties of the Sultan's sub- 
jects. He did so; and the reply was, that 
Prance was the acknowledged Protector of 
the Eastern Christians who owned spiritual 
allegiance to the Pope, or, as the French 
Ambassador was pleased to express it, " the 
hereditary Protector of the Oriental Catho- 
lics." In this character he had interfered 
in behalf of the Papal seceders from the 
Syrian Church. In this character he was 
acknowledged by the Porte through the 
whole of a controversy which lasted 
nearly two years. And in this character 
he finally succeeded, against the plainest 
dictates of justice and equity, in intimidat- 
ing the Porte so far as to prevent it from 
restoring the property. It is still in the 
hands of the Syrian Papists, and is likely, 
unless Eussia succeeds in her present de- 
mand, to remain there forever. 

We were at the time impressed with the 
conviction that this Protectorate of France 
had no foundation in any formal concession 
made by the Porte ; butthat it had grown 



29 



up unawares, and by degrees, from the old 
habit the Catholic Majesties of France had 
had of interfering in behalf of Oriental 
Papists. We had known that it was a 
pretence of long standing ; that the Latin 
Missions in the East had found shelter under 
the protection of it ; and that it had now 
come to be practically and fully ac- 
knowledged by the Porte. It was an estab- 
lished and undisputed Protectorate. The 
British Ambassador, with whom we con- 
ferred upon the subject, and who aided the 
Syrians in their suit, but without any of the 
advantage which his French colleague de- 
rived from the right of protection, was of 
the same opinion with ourself, that France 
could show no documentary basis for such a 
claim. The plea was, therefore, put in, at 
one period of the suit, that France was ex- 
ercising this Protectorate without any just 
title. But, on the one hand, the Porte was 
not at all disposed to listen to the plea, be- 
cause France certainly had what is a final 
and unanswerable argument with an Orien- 
tal, the argument of custom, — she had 
always been doing it, and that was 
enough, — and, on the other, the French 
Ambassador did deign to send to the Porte 
some document in which such a grant was 
made. The poor Bishop, when he came 
home, thoroughly disheartened, from this 
interview, told us that the document pre- 
3* 



30 

sented was some 150 years old, but he 
could not understand the exact tenor of 
it. We afterwards discovered its meaning. 
It was, doubtless, a copy of the Treaty, or 
Code of capitulations, granted by .the Sul- 
tan to Louis XIV. of France, in 1673, — in 
which we find these several concessions : 
first, "that the King of France be recog- 
nized the sole protector of the Catholics " 
(that is, of the Oriental Eomanists, subjects 
of the Sultan) " in the East;" secondly, 
"that Churches be erected or repaired [by 
them] without the previous authorization of 
the Porte;" and thirdly, "that the Holy 
Shrines shall be restored to the possession of 
the Latins, because they were conquered by 
Frenchmen in the Crusades." 

Here we have it, at full length, an 
acknowledged Protectorate of the Latin 
schismatics in the East, a Protectorate tot 
verbis ; a change in a fundamental law of 
the Empire and of Mohammedanism which 
forbids the increase of Christian Churches ; 
this law abrogated in behalf of the Papal 
seceders from the Oriental Communions, 
while it remained, and has ever since re- 
mained, and, unless Eussia succeeds in her 
present demand, is likely to remain, so long 
as the Turkish Empire stands, in full force 
against those Communions themselves ; and, 
finally, the possession of the Holy Places, 
the undoubted patrimony of the Greek 



31 



Church, which, if it was seized by French- 
men at the Crusades, was afterwards lost by 
them. These stipulations were embodied, 
with others hardly less important, but not 
bearing so directly upon the question now 
before us, in a Convention of the highest 
character, as grants from the Sultan himself 
to the King of France. These stipulations 
have never since been annulled. They are 
still in force ; and it is under them that 
France is acting at this day, as the acknowl- 
edged Protector of the Oriental Roman 
Catholics, representing their interests freely 
and constantly at the Porte, and extending, 
by the whole weight of her powerful influ- 
ence, the domain of Popery in the East. 

Notwithstanding the last of these impor- 
tant concessions, the Creeks, about the mid- 
dle of the last century, re-obtained posses- 
sion of the Holy Places, and have held 
them, with various struggles, until this time. 
When, in 1850, France re-advanced her 
claim, doubtless in concert with the Pope, 
and to gain, as we have supposed, the fa- 
vor which Louis Napoleon needed from 
him, that claim was put forward distinctly 
in her character as Protector of the Eastern 
Romanists ; and when it was finally with- 
drawn, on account of the threatening atti- 
tude of Russia, at a moment when the new- 
ly created Emperor of France could ill 
afford to lose the friendship of the European 



32 

Monarchies, it was declared by France, in 
express terms, that " while she was entitled 
by Capitulations to a supremacy in the 
Churches of the Shrines of the Holy Land, 
she would not, from a spirit of moderation, 
adhere, for the present, to the letter of those 
instruments ;' J thus making her concession 
one of grace, and not of duty. 

We now begin to see the real foundation 
of the difference between Eussia and Tur- 
key, and the true nature of the question at 
issue. Eussia has been acknowledged, for 
more than a century, as the nearest friend 
of the Greek Church. She has been em- 
powered, by Treaties with Turkey, one of 
which, that of Kainarji, bears date 1774, to 
represent the interests of the Greek Church 
to the Porte, and to appear in defence of 
its rights ; that is, she has been allowed to 
make representations to the Porte of ivhatever 
she thought might concern the ivelfare of the 
Greek Church ; and the Porte has promised 
to lend a friendly ear to her representations. 
This is the whole extent of the concessions 
hitherto made to her. Under these conces- 
sions, she has always, at least since our own 
acquaintance with Turkey began, been for- 
ward to do all in her power to defend the 
interests of the Greek Church, to represent 
them to the Porte, and to urge them upon 
the Sultan's attention. She has done this 
informally, as the nature of her contract 



33 



with Turkey allowed, as a friend of the 
Greek Church, and as an ally of the Sul- 
tan. But she has never assumed, as she 
had no acknowledged right to assume, the 
character of "Protector of the Greek 
Church." That title has never been ac- 
corded to her by the Porte ; and when her 
representations have succeeded, it has been 
by the influence which, at the moment, she 
happened to have with the Ottoman Gov- 
ernment. Her stipulated right has been 
no more than has been, and is, freely exer- 
cised by other Governments, (and, among 
others, by our own Government,) which 
have not the same terms of Treaty with 
Turkey. England, Austria, Prussia, and 
the United States, all within our own 
knowledge, some of them many times with- 
in our own knowledge, have used the same 
privilege. Their representatives at the 
Porte have advised the Turkish Govern- 
ment with regard to the religious interests of 
one portion or another of the Sultan's sub- 
jects. The only difference is, that Russia 
has done it systematically and constantly 
in behalf of the Greek Church, with an eye 
ever open to its welfare, and under the 
sanction of a Treaty. England, Austria, 
Prussia, and the United States have done it 
occasionally and without Treaty, yet, in 
practice, quite as freely as Russia herself. 
Her only advantage has been, that she had 



34 



an acknowledged right to make representa- 
tions, and they L had none ; but, in reality, the 
time has long gone by when any respecta- 
ble Power stood in such awe of Turkey, or 
had such respect for her sovereignty, that it 
would hesitate to advise her on any subject 
of her internal Government on which it 
might please to proffer an opinion. One 
does it, and all do it ; the frequency vary- 
ing according to the occasions which they 
may severally have ; while Turkey bears 
it with the exemplary patience of a Nation 
that cannot help itself, thanks them for 
their advice, makes fair promises of follow- 
ing it, and shirks them, when they are dis- 
tasteful, in the best way that she can. 

It has been said, and much importance 
has been attached to the alleged fact, that 
the Greeks themselves are opposed to this 
intervention of Eussia in their behalf. We 
hear it reported that the Greek Patriarch 
and other Greek Bishops have requested 
the honor of accompanying the Sultan 
to the camp in the Spring.* The present 

* October. — The Spring has come, the Summer has 
passed, but we have heard no more of the Patriarch 
and Bishops, — excepting that the Greek Bishop of 
Shumla, living under the eye and subject to the dictation 
of Omar Pasha, who, at that time, had his head-quarters 
there, has written a letter to the Bishop of London, ex- 
pressive of his sympathy with the Western Allies. We 
are astonished that there is but one such letter to be 



35 



Greek Patriarch, AnthDCOS, has held 
the office before, and we presume he is 
the same with whom, during that in- 
cumbency, it was our lot to form an inti- 
mate acquaintance. If so, he is a venera- 
ble, aged man, of easy temper, of mild 
manners, of inoffensive conversation. He 
is such a man as the Porte uniformly puts 
into the Patriarchate when it wishes a man 
to its mind ; for, although the Greek Pa- 
triarch is elected by the Metropolitical 
Synod, its action is subject to the dictation 
of the Government, when the Government 
chooses to express an opinion on the sub- 
ject"; and its opinion, we hardly need say, 
is never disregarded. In the present in- 
stance, the Patriarch was put in evidently 
for the emergency. He will yield to every 
request of the Sultan, he will issue docu- 
ments declaring his aversion to the Eussian 
Protectorate, he will accompany His Majes- 
ty to the camp ; but, through all, he and 
every member of the Greek Church will 
see, and know, that their only hope of res- 
cue from the domination of Mohammedan- 
ism (which they hate universally with the 
intense hatred that a thousand years of 
wrongs have accumulated) lies in the ad- 
vancing power of Russia. TTe have not a 
doubt that the Patriarch Anthimos, if it 
be he whom we have formerly seen exer- 
cising his office in full understanding with 



36 



the Eussian Ambassador at Constantinople, 
preserves an understanding with Eussia 
still ; that, though he may seem, from the 
necessity of the case, as he believes, to keep 
on good terms with the Porte, lest his peo- 
ple suffer from some outbreak of Moham- 
medan bigotry ; though he may issue let- 
ters in the interest of the Sultan, which he 
regards as mere involuntary acts of office 
dictated by his Turkish masters ; and 
though he may proceed with His Majesty 
to the field of battle, of his own accord, as 
the newspapers say, yet of an accord pre- 
ceded by a private intimation from "the 
Porte which he dares not disregard ; not- 
withstanding all this, he and his whole 
Church are as much friends of Eussia as 
they were a few years ago ; they feel their 
dependence upon her as much now as they 
did then ; and they know that if Eussia 
fails in this contest the failure is their own, 
the Oriental Church will be left without 
protection to the mercies of the Moham- 
medan, the tenderest of which are cruel. 
The contest began in rescuing their rights, 
which had been violated in the matter of 
the Holy Places. This was a great, an in- 
estimable favor to them. The present de- 
mand i^j that those and all other ancient 
rights of the Greek Church be secured by 
written compact ; and to suppose, for a mo- 
ment, that the Greek Patriarch and his 



37 



co-religionists are opposed to an agency that 
proposes to accomplish this for them ; an 
agency which has given them all the pro- 
tection which they have had the last 
fifty years, and which gives them all that 
they can hope for in the time to come ; that 
they are willing, nay, desirous, to see Rus- 
sia defeated in a matter which is life and 
death to them — a matter in which defeat 
would leave them without a single remain- 
ing safeguard against the encroachments of 
the Church of Rome, sustained, as she is, 
in the East, by the Protectorate of one of 
the most powerful governments of Europe- 
is, one would think, too great an absurdity 
even to be transmitted by telegraph. 

To return. The true question at issue is 
purely a Christian question ; and by this 
aspect of it our sympathies respecting it 
should be mainly regulated. However^ as 
men, we might be conscious of a certain 
kindliness of feeling towards the nation 
which is the weaker in the contest ; how- 
ever natural and spontaneous this feeling 
may be ; yet, as Christians and Churchmen^ 
we cannot avoid, if we would view it aright,' 
the entrance of a higher principle into°the 
consideration. It is really a question be- 
tween the Oriental and the Latin Church. 
Divested of all collateral issues, it is simply 
a question whether Eastern Christianity 
shall have the same kind and deo T ee of 
4 



38 



foreign protection that is accorded to the 
comparatively insignificant body of those 
who, remaining, as before, subjects of the 
Sultan, have seceded, or are the descend- 
ants of those who have seceded, from the 
Oriental Church to the Papal Communion. 
We fearlessly avow, that we do represent 
the true American and Protestant feeling 
and principle, when we say, that equal 
political advantages and guarantees should 
be granted to the two hostile Communions. 
If either is to have a privilege above the 
other, it should be in favor of the old-estab- 
lished Christianity of the country. But 
even this is not asked. The demand is 
simply that the Greek Church be placed 
upon the same footing with the Papal 
Schism.- France is the acknowledged Pro- 
tector of the latter. Eussia demands a 
similar guarantee for the former. Nay, 
though nearer to the Greek Church than 
France can pretend to be to the Latin, her 
demand is less than that wdiich has been 
accorded to France. She does not ask to 
be recognized as Protector of the Greek 
Church, which France is acknowledged to 
be to the Latin sect. This is a title that 
covers a right to interfere, in any manner 
or degree, and on any subject, that may 
have a bearing, however remote, upon the 
real or pretended welfare of the Papal 
Communion. She asks onlv that the ancient 



39 

and acknowledged rights of the Gh mrch 

be secured by written guarantee. She does 
not ask that this writing be in the highest 
form of diplomatic contract, as has been 
granted to France : but is willing that it be 
of the lowest and least formal kind that is 
known in international negotiation. >kc 

= the very least that can be supposed 
sufficient to secure the Greek Church 
against the encroachments of its great ene- 
my. Is there any injustice in all this ? We 
confess that we cannot see it. Our every 
feeling of truth and equity convinces us 
that the claim of Russia is just and moder- 
ate, and that it ought to be sustained. The 
Four Powers have virtually acknowledged 
as much in their Vienna Xote. which ac- 
corded to Russia substantially what she had 
desired. How can they, or any of them. 
go to war with her upon any possible pre- 
text, unless it be that they cannot afford to 
see her extend her conquests in Turkey by 
the acquisition of territory ? This, if there 
be a European war, will be the only ground 
of it. But it presents an issue entirely aside 
from the right and wrong of the question 
in debate between Russia and Turkey. A 
it is well worth while to remember, in c 
such a war should break out, (which may 
God, in His mercy to the Nations, forefend ! » 

:. upon the real point in dispute, the 
enemies of Russia in that war have ac- 



40 

knowledged the rectitude of her cause, in 
the Note which they recommended to the 
Porte to adopt, and with which Eussia de- 
clared herself satisfied, as answering suf- 
ficiently her demands. 

But it is impossible not to foresee that a 
European war will, in its results, greatly 
affect the question upon which we have 
now treated. It is impossible, we suppose, 
that such a war should not leave Eussia 
crippled and defeated ; for, however suc- 
cessful she might be when opposed singly 
to so weak an antagonist as Turkey, there 
is no chance, humanly speaking, of her 
competing with the Navy of England and 
the Legions of France." She will be defeat- 
ed; and what then becomes of the real 
question at issue ? Turkey declares that 
even her former Treaty with Eussia, con- 
ferring, as it did, very imperfect advantages 
upon her as the friend of the Greek Church 
at the Porte, is annulled by the war. To 
what, then, are the Eastern Christians left? 
On the one hand, to the powerful enmity 
of Prance, waging a religious war upon 
them through the ever-active agency of the 
Church of Eome ; and, on the other, to the 

* We do not mean by this that Russia can be forced 
to accept terras of peace which she will deem dishonora- 
ble to herself. But she may be set aside from the Euro- 
pean compact, and then the result here predicted will 
equally follow. 



41 

uncovenanted mercies of the Mohammedan. 
What a dire prospect does this present for 
the ancient Christianity of the East ! What 
a dire prospect for the cause of the Angli- 
can Church in that quarter, which is, we 
believe, the cause of the purest Cath- 
olicity !** What a dire prospect for our 
common Protestantism ! What a dire 
prospect for our whole Christianity, except- 
ing for the Church of Rome, which will 
alone gain by a European war ! And if there 
is a thought which comes over the mind, 
as we contemplate this possible future, with 
a more melancholy interest than any other, 
it is the thought that our dear mother-land, 
old England, the Bulwark of Protestantism, 
will be found fighting the battles of Rome. 
For France it is consistent, it is to be ex- 
pected. But for England! alas, alas, if the 
Cross of St. George is to be borne over the 
waters of the Mediterranean, not alone to 
carry aid and comfort to the powers of 
darkness which rally under the banner of 
the Crescent, but to inflict a wound upon the 
ancient Christianity of the East, from 
which it may never recover ! Alas, alas ! 

* It is a matter well worthy of note, that England, by 
taking side with the party that represents the Latin in- 
terests in this strife, incurs for herself, and, by necessary 
consequence, for the English Communion, the deep and 
probably perpetual hostility of the Greek Church. In- 
deed, every religious consideration seems to be merged 
in her political jealousy of Russia. 

4* 



42 

if, in the judgment that shall come upon the 
Nations, it be found that England, with the 
faith that she has purified through fire and 
blood — with the memory of Martyrs cluster- 
ing like a crown of glory around her head — 
with her Primitive and Apostolic Church, 
derived from the pure fountain of the East, 
when that fountain sent abroad its clearest, 
and most refreshing waters ever other lands 
— England, Protestant England, the truest 
friend of the Keformation, shall have borne 
a part, and that the principal part, in send 
ing back upon the East the curse from 
which she is so happily delivered, in aiding 
the most aggressive Church on earth in pro- 
pagating, unopposed, and with every van- 
tage for success, the corrupt faith and wor- 
ship which neither our fathers nor Ave were 
able to bear ! 



II. 

EUROPEAN PROTECTION 

OF 

ORIENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 



October, 1854. 



A ray of light has at length shot athwart 
the chaos of contradictions in which, for six 
long months, we have wandered wildering. 
Defeats and counter-defeats ; victories gained 
by telegraph to which there came no subse- 
quent confirmation ; rumors of diplomatic 
Notes which ultimately led to nothing, and 
grand projects of benefits to the Eastern 
Christians from the "Western Alliance, 
which finally dissolved into empty air : — 
such have been the themes which, for half 
a year, have tantalized and deluded the 
attentive student of the Oriental Question. 
At one time, we had upon paper the terms 
of a Convention, between Turkey on the 
one hand, and England and France on the 
other, by which there would be secured to 
the Eastern Christians far higher privileges 
than could have resulted from a. concession 
to the demands of Russia. The careful ob- 
server could not but see in those terms a 



44 

grosser violation of Turkish sovereignty 
than any which the worst enemies of Russia 
had imputed to her. But while those w T ho 
had been most clamorous for the preserva- 
tion of that sovereignty overlooked the in- 
fraction of it by the Western Powers, in 
their eagerness to recommend the Alliance 
to Christian minds, the nearer friends of our 
down-trodden brethren in the East, who 
have professed little regard for the shadowy 
phantom of Turkish independence, were 
but too glad to see help coming to those 
who are really the oppressed, to dwell upon 
the inconsistency of the conduct by which 
it had been secured. If England and 
France were really about to afford efficient 
protection to the Eastern Christia ns, we 
were little concerned that they did it by the 
violation of a sovereignty which they had 
combined to defend, since we had no faith 
in the value, or even the existence, of any 
such sovereignty ; while those who have 
held the opposite views, especially Chris- 
tian writers, were so earnest to show that 
the Alliance was a blessing to the Oriental 
Christians, that they quoted with exultation 
the terms of this Convention, in utter lor- 
getfulness that the sovereignty of Turkey, 
encroachments upon which had first awa- 
kened their sympathy in her behalf, was 
more than ever damaged by it. 

With all the formality of diplomatic cor. 



45 

respondence, it was announced, under date 
" Constantinople, March 9, 1854," that, the 
preceding day, "a four hours' conference 
was held between the English and French 
Ambassadors and Eeshid Pasha, touching 
the Convention between the Western Pow- 
ers and Turkey." Of this Convention, one 
of the two grand Articles w r as, the " ame- 
lioration of the condition of the Christians f 
and some of the specifications under this 
Article were, " Abolition of the poll-tax," 
[the kharaj] or annual tribute of about 2J 
dollars, paid by Christians and Jews* 
according to the original law of Moham- 
medanism, for permission to profess their 
religions,] and, "Eight of Christians to be 
admitted as witnesses in judicial proceed- 
ings" — that is, when a Mussulman is a party 
— for, otherwise, their testimony is already 
admissible. Well was it said by some who 
befriended the Western Alliance, "What 
has Russia demanded, of equal value with 
these conditions?" Truly, she has demand- 
ed nothing of a specific character, to be com- 
pared with them in importance. And, also, 
she has demanded nothing which would so 
thoroughly subvert the Ottoman dominion. 
Both these points belong to the fundamen- 
tal laws and Constitution of the Empire. 
Russia had asked a pledge, that the ancient 
and acknowledged rights of the Greek Chris- 
tians, which had lately been violated in the 



46 



affair of the Holy Places, should thereafter 
be preserved intact. She touched no law of 
Mohammedanism, she intrenched upon no 
principle of the Turkish Constitution, in a 
single particular, by that demand : while 
these reported concessions to England and 
France were in direct contravention of the 
Koran and the whole body of the Sunnee, 
(Traditional Law,) from Mohammed down, 
— in direct violation, therefore, of the two- 
fold basis of Turkish nationality and inde- 
pendence. 

Of course, (for such has been our uniform 
fate for the last half-year,) we were soon 
after informed that the reported Article and 
its specifications existed only in the brain of 
some imaginative letter- writer in Constanti- 
nople; — and this reminds us of a favorite 
winter evening amusement we used to have 
in that city, which consisted in reading, in 
our American newspapers, as they copied 
from the European journals, the "latest 
news " from Turkey, — an exercise which, by 
the highly romantic and fabulous character 
of the contents, afforded as much enter- 
tainment as children ordinarily derive from 
the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights. 
But we were about to say, that while the 
impression of such a Convention lasted, it 
was fairly flung in our faces by the peculiar 
friends of Turkey, as showing how unneces- 
sary was Eussian protection for the Greeks, 



47 

and how much superior, for the very end 
which we most coveted, was the auspicious 
alliance of England and France. Well, the 
complete violation of Turkish sovereignty 
involved in this Convention, was, by these 
friends, quite kept out of sight. And now 
we ask, adverecundiam, since the good news 
has exploded, that they will not -fall back 
upon their old sympathy with Turkish sov- 
ereignty and independence. England and 
France were reported to have violated them. 
They rejoiced in the report, and made the 
most of it. Thus they have virtually ac- 
knowledged that the protection of the Eas- 
tern Christians is, after all, of more impor- 
tance than the sustaining of the trembling 
shadow of Turkish sovereignty; and we 
mean hereafter to hold them to this acknowl- 
edgment. We believe, indeed, that when 
matters of a really practical and high moral 
importance come under consideration, they 
will regard this pretension of Turkish sov- 
ereignty as we do — a figment of the brain ; 
or, at the best, a speculative theory in Eu- 
ropean politics, as unsubstantial as the fa- 
mous question of the "balance of power" 
which gives rise to it. 

Yet, there had been a conference, and a 
Convention had grown out of it. Some 
three weeks later, (March 81,) Lord John 
Russell declared, in the House of Commons, 
concerning this Convention: "It does not 



48 

« 

contain — I think it would have been wrong 
if it had contained — any stipulation with 
regard to the internal government of 
Turkey. [The same evening, in the 
House of Lords, the Earl of Clarendon de- 
clared, more specifically, on the same point, 
" The Treaty contains no stipulations of an}< 
kind with respect to the Christian subjects 
of Turkey."] We have proposed no such 
Convention to the Porte. We have pro- 
posed to her a Convention in the nature of 
a Military Convention." What this Mili- 
tary Convention is, he also explained : "It 
provides for the assistance that we shall 
give her [Turkey] ; and provides that Tur- 
key shall not make peace without the con- 
currence and consent of England and 
France." This important declaration shows 
two things: first, that no stipulation is 
made in favor of the Eastern Christians, 
as a condition of the assistance which Tur- 
key is now receiving from the Allied Pow- 
ers ; and, secondly, that the sovereignty of 
Turkey is yet violated by the Convention, 
in an essential particular; — for no preroga- 
tive of sovereignty is more clear and indis- 
putable than the right to declare war and 
make peace. Henceforth, until the views 
of England and France are realized, until 
their private, and, it may be, selfish designs 
respecting Eussia are fulfilled, the Turk 
must continue in a state of warfare against 



49 

his Northern neighbor, even though his 
own interests should seem to him to re- 
quire its termination. Truly, this is vassal- 
age — this is bondage. The Emperor Nich- 
olas has justly said of it : " The results will 
shortly show whether the Powers or Kus- 
sia have struck the most fatal blow, not 
only against the independence, but against 
the very existence of Turkey. As a price 
for the interested services given to her, she 
has already renounced by Treaty the dis- 
tinguished privilege of every independent 
Power — that of making peace or declaring 
war at its own free-will — at the moment and 
on the conditions it may itself deem most 
advisable." — (Declaration, St. Petersburg 
Journal, April 12, 1854.) 

We have been accustomed to regard true 
friendship as bounded, in its acts of kind- 
ness, by a friend's own sense of his need of 
assistance. It is certainly a new phase in 
alliances of this kind, that the party assist- 
ed is not to get out of his difficulty until 
the party assisting has given him permission 
to do so. Between man and man, such a 
compact would hardly be held compatible 
with free-will and personal independence. 
In the present instance, it smacks strongly 
of other motives for entering into the con- 
test than that which is alleged in the Brit- 
ish Declaration of War — u the defence of 
an ally." If Turkey is not in thorough 
5 



50 

subjection to England and France by this 
Convention, if her future destiny is not 
placed at their disposal, we have failed to 
gather the natural sense and to foresee the 
natural consequences of such a stipulation. 

When Lord John Eussell said, in the 
words above quoted, that it would have 
been wrong if the Convention had contain- 
ed any stipulation with regard to the inter- 
nal government of Turkey, he doubtless 
meant that the wrong would have consist- 
ed in the fact that such stipulation would 
have been an infringement of the sover- 
eignty of Turkey, which it was the very 
object of the Convention to sustain.* But 
what are we to say, when we behold, in 
the same Convention, that same sovereignty 
as much infringed by the article which it 
does contain, relative to the termination of 
the war, as it would have been by a conces- 
sion in behalf of the Eastern Christians? 



* It has since been expressly and repeatedly avowed, 
that this delicate regard for Turkish sovereignty was 
the ground of withholding the stipulation referred to. 
The benefits needed by the Eastern Christians are, it is 
said, to spring from the independent good-will of the 
Turks. Do England and France imagine the -Millennium 
is at hand, that they believe the wolf is thus to. protect 
the lamb? When we call to mind certain passages in 
the past, in which we had the honor to act with Lord 
Stratford de RedclifTe, for the defence of Christians op- 
pressed by Mohammedan intolerance, we can hardly 
frame to ourself the imagination that he now subscribes 
to iuch a view as this. 



51 



Ah, there is the difference, — the infringe- 
ment actually perpetrated is one which ena- 
bles England and France to use the war be- 
tween Eussia and Turkey, ad libitum, for the 
promotion of their own interests ; while an 
article in favor of the Christians would 
have promoted only the interests of hu- 
manity and Christianity. It will be seen, 
as we proceed, that the league between the 
Western Powers uniformly subordinates 
the latter consideration, but is never blind 
to the former. The preservation of Turkish 
sovereignty is a sufficient reason for leaving 
religion out of view, but it is inoperative 
when self-interest is placed in the scale. 

At all events, it is important to note, that 
nothing has been done by the Western com- 
pact to relieve Eastern Christianity from its 
state of degradation and bondage ; that such 
relief did not enter into the conditions upon 
which England and France vouchsafed their 
assistance to Turkey, at a time when they 
were free to dictate their own terms : while, 
on the other hand, that assistance is given for 
the express purpose of prolonging the exist- 
ence and strengthening the power of an Em- 
pire which has ever been a deadly foe to 
Christianity ; which, whatever it may, under 
compulsion, profess and promise, must al- 
ways be her foe so long as the fundamental 
principles of its Government remain un- 
changed ; the continuance of which insures 



52 



the continuance of Mohammedanism, whose 
life is now mainly dependent upon the du- 
ration of Turkey; and, in necessary conse- 
quence, the continuance of the heavy bond- 
age under which the Oriental Church has 
groaned for centuries. Surely, surely, as an 
offset to this cruel list of evils, the two Chris- 
tian Nations which have taken this tremen- 
dous responsibility upon themselves, might 
have sought to alleviate with one hand the 
burden which they are binding more closely 
upon the shoulders of their Eastern breth- 
ern with the other. Or, if they could not 
venture so far to violate the sovereignty of 
Turkey, which they were enlisted to support, 
they might have had the grace not to sacri- 
fice that sovereignty in a point affecting their 
temporal interests, when they were so scru- 
pulous to respect it in a point affecting their 
religion. The apology is inadequate, under 
such a contradiction in their practice. 



The history of the last six months has 
settled one important question conclusively. 
Why have England and France undertaken 
this war, and what do they intend by it ? 
The answer is, that they intend to arrest 
the progress of Eussiaas a Xation, to check 
her aggrandizement, to reduce her strength. 
This was unquestionably the original object, 
to which the support of Turkey was a 



53 

means; but it has become more apparent of 
late, and now it is recognized and acknowl- 
edged as the chiefly influential motive. The 
whole tone of the English Press, as well as 
the more formal declarations in Parliament, 
show that this is the prime element of the 
war feeling. We need not quote documen- 
tary proof — of which an abundance is at 
hand — in support of a proposition which, we 
suppose, all will now admit. 

A second question is, Why have England 
and France formed this intention ? The an- 
swer is, Because they believe the further ag- 
grandizement of Russia dangerous to them- 
selves, and, they will add, prejudicial to the 
welfare of Europe. 

Now, it is not our purpose to abandon 
the religious aspects of the subject, in which 
we acknowledge our own interest chiefly 
centres. But we cannot forbear, in passing, 
to say a word of the character of the war in 
this view of it, more particularly because a 
false sympathy on this point is known to 
prevent, in many minds, the regard which 
would otherwise be felt for the Eastern 
Christians. 

Is it allowable, when two Nations believe 
that a third is growing too powerful — that 
its farther growth may overshadow them- 
selves, and become a general inconvenience 
to the'community of Nations — is it allowable 
for them to engage in a war to repress that 
5* 



54 



growth by violence, and to cripple the power 
which they are beginning to fear? If so, then 
it is equally allowable for them to pursue the 
same course towards a fourth Nation, when 
it shall come, in their estimation, into the 
same position of danger to themselves ; and 
it is allowable for any other Nations com- 
bined to practise in the same way upon ei- 
ther of them. For example, it is allowable 
for Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to imagine 
future evil to themselves from the progress 
of liberal principles in England, or from the 
enormous growth of her territory, (compared 
with which, and considering the relative 
value of their possessions as positions affect- 
ing the interests of the rest of the world, 
the extension of Russia is far less formida- 
ble,) and to combine, accordingly, to arrest 
that progress or growth, and to prevent 
its farther expansion. It is allowable, 
also, for England and France to look with 
a jealous eye upon our own acquisitions, and 
to deal to us the same even-handed justice, 
if such we admit to be, which they are now 
measuring out to Russia. It is, perhaps, 
the strangest of all the strange phenomena of 
this extraordinary war, that Americans can 
largely sympathize in an enterprise which 
they would deem the most audacious insult, 
if directed, upon precisely the same grounds, 
against themselves. Through the prepon- 
derant influence of the English Press, from 



do 



which we are content to glean our opinions 
of Russia and of the war, there are many, 
perhaps still (though a marked change of 
sentiment is in progress) a large majority in 
this country who look with complacent appro- 
val upon this grand scheme for humbling a 
mighty Nation. To us it appears a prodi- 
gious piracy — the introduction of a new 
principle into international intercourse — a 
principle akin to the maxim that ''might 
makes right," which is the law of robbers — 
the principle, namely, that the growth of 
Nations, however legitimate, (for no one, we 
presume, will pretend that the acquisitions 
of Eussia thus far do not bear a fair com- 
parison, on moral grounds, with those of 
England, or of any other Nation that has 
added largely to its possessions by conquest, - ) 
may be violently arrested whenever other 
Nations see, or imagine they see, danger to 
themselves in it, though no possessions of 
their own are touched or threatened. Eng- 
land may go on. adding dominion to do- 
minion, selecting for her occupation the 
most commanding positions on the face of 
the globe : but when will the time come 
that she will quietly suffer the same message 
to be borne to her which she is now bearing 
to Russia — ,: Thus far shalt thou go. and no 
farther?" 

The nefarious character of her present 
undertaking, when viewed in the light of 



56 



the common principles of right and justice, 
is absolutely startling. If the ground upon 
which now, almost exclusively, she de- 
fends her aggression, is tenable, then the 
men of any smaller community, who see 
one of their number acquiring wealth fast- 
er than the rest, and thus gaining an influ- 
ence greatly disproportionate to his personal 
worth or right, as they may deem of it, 
may lawfully relieve him of so much of his 
gains as is necessary to bring him down to 
their own level. They may fire his barns, 
ravage his fields, plunder his house, and 
they will do no more than England and 
France are now doing to Eussia, and on sub- 
stantially the same pretext. Agrarianism 
desires no better defence than the conduct 
of these two powerful Nations furnishes. 
The war, we say, bad enough when it pro- 
fessed to be for the support of a Moham- 
medan Power with which there was no 
Treaty of alliance offensive and defensive, 
becomes positively monstrous when it is 
undertaken on the ground of checking the 
progress of Eussia. 

If anything can aggravate the wrong, it 
is the undignified proceeding of adding in- 
sult to injury by abusing Eussia and her 
Emperor in terms to which gentlemen in 
their private differences are strangers, em- 
ploying alike the thunder of the Times and 
the folly of Punch to blacken the character 



57 



of a Nation which, whatever may be its 
failings, has done no injury to England or 
France. Do they hope, by ruining the 
reputation of Russia, that the injustice of 
their assault upon her may gain a cover of 
respectability ? Destroy a man's character, 
and you may safely treat him as you please. 
Few will sympathize with a reputed scoun- 
drel, even when he is unjustly dealt with. If 
the war which England is waging were meri- 
torious, she would not feel the need of re- 
viling her adversary. Hard names betray 
the want of hig:h and honorable motive. 



We now come to the main occasion of 
the present Essay. On the 29th of June, 
1854, Count Nesselrode transmitted to the 
Russian Envoy at Vienna, a Dispatch, in 
reply to the Austrian demand for the evac- 
uation of the Principalities. In this docu- 
ment, the Russian Chancellor, besides dwell- 
ing upon other points which do not enter 
into our present argument, speaks as fol- 
lows of the u consolidation of the rights of 
the Christians in Turkey:" — u Starting 
from the idea that the civil rightslto be ob- 
tained for all the Christian subjects of the 
Porte are inseparable from the religious 
rights as stipulated by the Protocol, [of 
April 9th,] and would become valueless for 
our co-religionists, if the latter, in acquiring 



58 



new privileges, did not retain the ancient 
ones, we have already declared that if it 
was thus, the demand which the Emperor 
has made to the Porte would be fulfilled, 
the motive of the difference set aside, and 
His Majesty ready to concur in the Euro- 
pean guarantee of those privileges." This 
language is too clear and explicit to require 
explanation. The Chancellor says, that 
the Emperor is ready to enter into a com- 
pact with the Four Great Powers, for a joint 
protection of the Eastern Christians, pro- 
vided it be understood that their ancient 
religious rights are to be secured to them, 
while new civil immunities are conferred 
upon them. This he declares would satis- 
fy the demand of Eussia, out of which the 
war has sprung, and so put an end to the 
difference. 

This Dispatch has been answered, simul- 
taneously and in the same terms, by the 
Earl of Clarendon on the part of England, 
and by M. Drouyn de L'Huys on the part 
of France. As their Notes concur in senti- 
ment and language, it is sufficient to refer 
to either of them ; and that of France hap- 
pens, at this present writing, to be before 
us. M. D. L'Huys, in reply to that portion 
of the Note of Count Nesselrode which we 
have quoted, writes as follows to the French 
Ambassador at Vienna : — " Finally, the 
paragraph of Count Nesselrode's Dispatch 



59 



which concerns the situation of the Chris- 
tian subjects of the Sultan, -signifies, or I 
am very much mistaken, that the Cabinet 
of St. Petersburg places in the number of 
the ancient privileges, that the Greeks of 
the Oriental Rite ought to retain all the 
consequences, civil and religious, at the 
same time, of the Protectorate it claims 
over them ; and in admitting that this Pro- 
tectorate should be founded upon a Euro- 
pean guarantee, I in vain endeavored to 
find how the independence and sovereignty 
of the Sublime Porte could co-exist with 
such a system. The Government of His 
Imperial Majesty assuredly does not wish to 
say that Europe can show itself indifferent 
to the amelioration of the condition of the 
rayahs. On the contrary, it thinks that it 
ought to cover those populations with its 
active solicitude, and come to an under- 
standing to encourage the benevolent dis- 
positions of the Sultan in their favor. 
But it firmly believes that the reforms of 
which the system is susceptible, to which 
the different communities of Turkey are 
submitted, ought, to be salutary and effi- 
cacious, to emanate from the Ottoman Gov- 
ernment ; and that, if their accomplishment 
requires foreign assistance, it should be an 
amicable action, shown by good and well- 
meant advice, and not by an interference 
founded upon Treaties which no State 



60 



could subscribe to without abdicating its 
independence." 

We ask for this passage an attentive 
perusal and a careful weighing of the 
language, which is in some places obscure, 
although the general sense is obvious, M. 
Droiiyn de L'Huys then proceeds, as does 
also Lord Clarendon in Ms Note, to state 
the conditions upon which peace may be 
restored with Eussia ; and here, again, the 
two Notes coincide perfectly. We con- 
tinue our quotation from the Dispatch of 
the French Minister. He says that "the 
particular conditions which the Allied Pow- 
ers will put for peace depend upon too 
many eventualities for them to indicate 
them at present," but that they are u perfect- 
ly willing to make known at once some of 
the guarantees which appear indispensable," 
Among the conditions which he names, 
one only touches our present subject, and 
that we give in full. " 4. That no Power 
shall claim the right of exercising an offi- 
cial Protectorate over the subjects of the 
Sublime Porte, no matter to which Eite 
they belong; but that France, Austria, 
Great Britain, Prussia and Eussia shall give 
their mutual concurrence to obtain from the 
initiative of the Ottoman Government the 
consecration and the observance of the re- 
ligious privileges of the different religious 
communities, and turn to account, in the 



61 

reciprocal interest of their co-religionists, 
the generous intentions manifested by His 
Majesty the Sultan, without any infringe- 
ment upon the dignity and independence of 
his Crown resulting therefrom.*' 

The great importance of this document 
will justify the length of the quotations 
which we have made. We propose to 
subject them to a rigorous examination. 

We began this Essay by saying that a 
ray of light has appeared. These Notes of 
the British and French Ministers are the 
first pfficial and authoritative intimation of 
the future arrangement which Great Britain 
and France propose to make for the protec- 
tion of the Oriental Christians under the 
merciless rule of Mohammedanism. We 
might have anticipated, and we did private- 
ly anticipate, this conclusion from the 
language held by the Earl of Clarendon 
and Lord John Eussell at the time of the 
declaration of war : we have quoted their 
words above. But their language at that 
time had reference only to the conditions 
upon which assistance was about to be 
rendered to Turkey in the war, and not to 
the final arrangement, in which all the lead- 
ing European Powers should concur. Wc 
therefore forbore to speak until the desti- 
nies of the future should become more ap- 
parent. We have the first revelation con- 
cerning them in the Notes wdiich we have 



62 



now cited. It is a ray of light, indeed, dis- 
closing the reality of a fearful prospect for* 
our Eastern brethren. May God protect 
them, for the mercies of the Christian Xa- 
tions would sacrifice them to the il balance 
of power " in Europe ! 

It is evident that this chimera of a poli- 
tical equilibrium is governing the counsels 
both of England and France ; or, we would ♦ 
rather say, of the former only, for we have 
never been able to overcome the impression 
that there is another and farther-reaching 
design in the mind of the Emperor ©f the 
French. But England has unquestionably 
yielded herself to the idea that the balance 
of power in Europe is to be preserved only 
by a check upon Eussia through the pre- 
servation of the sovereignty of Turkey, and 
to this end it is necessary that that sover- 
eignty be thoroughly guaranteed. For 
this purpose, it is undoubtedly needful that 
the Sultan have the sole and entire control 
over his own subjects of every class. There 
can be no real sovereignty short of this. 
The Notes, therefore, of the English and 
French Ministers propose to leave the juris- 
diction of the Eastern Christians entirely 
in the hands of the Turkish Government, 
the European Powers having only the right 
of offering friendlv advice, which the Sul- 
tan will follow, or not, as it may please him. 
This is the obvious purport of the Notes, 



63 

and we freely confess that it is the only 
course which can lead to the re-establish- 
ment of a real sovereignty in Turkey. 

To estimate aright the value of this ar- 
rangement, we must recur for a moment to 
the condition of things in Turkey at the 
breaking out of the present war. Ever 
since the Treaty of Kainarji, 1774, Eussia, 
without having a formal and acknowledged 
Protectorate of the Greek Christians, has 
been recognized at the Porte as their near- 
est friend, has freely represented their in- 
terests there, and urged the adoption of 
measures for their relief and benefit. The 
writer has had frequent opportunities to 
witness the operation of her agency in their 
behalf, and he can say, in all sincerity, that 
it has been timely and beneficial. France, 
on the other hand, has had the Protectorate 
of the Eastern Eoman Catholics, seceders, 
or the descendants of seceders, from the 
several Oriental Churches to Popery. She 
has received this Protectorate from the ex- 
press stipulations of Treaties, and has ex- 
ercised it under their formal sanction. The 
other Oriental Communions, the Armenian, 
Syrian, Nestorian, &c, have had no foreign 
Protector. During the last decade of years, 
an effort was made to bring them under 
the protection of England. The writer en- 
gaged largely in that undertaking. He 
urged the importance of it upon the Eng- 



64 



lish Government, in several communications 
addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and in numerous representations to the 
British Ambassador at Constantinople. 
Formal requests for such a protection were 
presented from the Armenian, Syrian, and 
Nestorian Patriarchs. A compliance with 
them was urged particularly on the ground 
that it would serve as an offset to the pro- 
tection of the Greeks by Eussia, and of the 
Roman Catholics by France, and thus give 
to England her due share of influence 
among the Eastern Christians, while it 
would greatly promote the work of the 
English Church in their behalf. This en- 
deavor continued, if we rightly remember, 
for the space of two years. It terminated 
with a reply received from the British Am- 
bassador, conveying, as was believed, the 
views of the English Government upon the 
subject. The reply was, in substance, that 
" England had no confidence in the stability 
of Turkey ; that she was rapidly declining, 
and her end appeared not far distant ; that, 
under these circumstances, the Government 
thought it the wisest course to keep aloof 
from all interference in the internal affairs 
of Turkey, which might compromise the 
position of England in case of a downfall : 
that they desired, therefore, no permanent 
interest in the countrv, but wished to be at 



65 

liberty to avail themselves of circumstances 
when the end should come." 

The downfall of Turkey was then reckon- 
ed upon as a certain event, probably not 
far distant, by all intelligent men, and by 
the European Governments, by none more 
so than by England. It was this general 
impression which gave rise to the secret 
correspondence between the Emperor Nich- 
olas and the British Government, out of 
which an attempt has been made to show 
that the former proposed a distinct partition 
of Turkey. It was, in fact, merely an ac- 
tion based upon the opinion common to 
both Governments as to the state of health 
of " the sick man," and the probable issue 
of his malady ; a friendly and informal 
proposition to come to such an understand- 
ing respecting their mutual positions in that 
result, as would prevent a conflict of opin- 
ions and interests at the time of its occur- 
rence. It was a wise proposition, and was not 
unkindly received by the British Govern- 
ment, though a very unkind, not to say dis- 
honorable, use has since been made of it. 

It is sufficient, to show the perfect integ- 
rity of the Eussian Emperor in that corres- 
pondence, to bear in mind the circum- 
stances which preceded its publication. A 
bitter and personal attack had been made 
upon the Emperor by Lord John Russell, 
in the House of Commons, (Feb. 17, 1854.) 
6* 



66 



In reply to it, the Bussian Government, in 
the St. Petersburg Journal of March 2d, 
appeals to a private and informal corres- 
pondence which the Emperor had held with 
the British Government, as affording proof 
conclusive of the justice and honesty of his 
views respecting Turke}^, and especially 
calls upon Lord John Eussell to reperuse 
that correspondence, and to see from it 
whether the Emperor had not explained 
himself with frankness and unreserve to the 
British Government, and whether it was not 
sufficient to remove all doubt as to his real 
intentions towards Turkey. This article in 
the Journal led to the publication of the 
correspondence in England, and that cor- 
respondence is the Secret Correspondence 
referred to. The appeal to it on the part 
of Bussia, while it was yet unknown to the 
world, proves conclusively that it was es- 
teemed by her a complete vindication of 
the Emperor. 

The simple and entire history of the affair 
is this: Great Britain and Bussia being 
deeply impressed with the conviction that 
the Empire of Turkey was not of long dura- 
tion, the latter proposes to consider their 
relative positions in view of a fatal event, so 
as to avoid collision when the catastrophe 
should come. X o proposal of a partition was 
made. On the contrary, in the Correspond- 
ence, Bussia voluntarily assumes pledges^ 



67 



quite opposed to a spirit of aggression. She 
pledges herself not to attempt to gain pos- 
session of Constantinople. She asks no 
concession, desires no privilege, for her own 
aggrandizement, lays it clown as a settled 
rule of conduct that all the Governments of 
Europe are to labor together to avert the 
downfall of Turkey so long as shall be possi- 
ble, and makes her proposition for a mutual 
understanding as to what should not be, 
rather than what should be, done in case of 
such an event taking place. 

The effort in England to turn this Corres- 
pondence to the disadvantage of Eussia, by 
propagating the impression that it looked to 
a proposal for partition on her part, while, 
in fact, England, as well as Eussia, was con- 
templating the issue upon the expectation 
of which the Correspondence was based, is 
one of those stains on English honor which, 
if they have already become unfortunately 
numerous in this affair, have arisen, we are 
ready to believe, from the great misfortune 
of being engaged in a business which has 
not a sufficiency of honorable and just mo- 
tive to sustain it. The conduct of Her 
Majesty's Government, in allowing Eussia 
to be injured by an impression which they 
must know to be false, is hardly respectable ; 
while the manly justification of the Em- 
peror's motives by the Earl of Derby, on 
the same occasion, (see Debate in the House 



68 



of Lords, March Slst,) is what we are accus 
tomed to expect from high-minded and 
honest Englishmen. 

We have wandered somewhat from our 
immediate subject, for the sake of correcting 
a misapprehension into which even some 
fair and ingenuous minds have fallen, with 
regard to the famous Secret Correspondence, 
either from a cursory perusal of the docu- 
ments themselves, without a knowledge of 
the antecedent views of the English Govern- 
ment respecting the fate of Turkey, or from 
too hasty a reception of the interpretation 
which has been put upon the Correspon- 
dence by the English Press. 

It is evident, that if England and France 
are sincere in what thev declare to be the 
object of the present war, namely, the " pla- 
cing a check upon Russian aggrandizement 
by attaching Turkey, through the re-estab- 
lishment of her perfect sovereignty and 
independence, to the equilibrium of Europe," 
it can be done only by thoroughly respect- 
ing that sovereignty themselves, and by a 
careful abstinence from all acts that might 
invalidate it. Hence it must result, as from 
the necessity of their position, that they 
cannot interfere in behalf of the Eastern 
Christians, by any system of protection. 
They must be left solely to the government 
and oversight of the Sultan. Less than this 
would be to encroach upon his sovereignty. 



69 



The Mohammedan rule over them must be 
free and entire ; otherwise, Turkey is not 
independent, and the balance of power in 
Europe is disturbed. We repeat, therefore, 
that England and France are consistent with 
their object, in holding the position which 
they have now assumed, before the world — 
that the Turk is to govern the Christian 
after his own pleasure. We say, further, 
that they cannot possibly preserve this con- 
sistency, or attain their object, if they aban- 
don this position ; for any interference with 
the Mohammedan domination over the Sul- 
tan's Christian subjects at once attaints his 
sovereignty. 

And now, we wish two important facts 
to be borne in mind. First, that, hitherto, 
for nearly a century, the Oriental Church 
(for so, by way of pre-eminence and Catho- 
lic right, we style the Greek Communion) 
has had an efficient and invaluable foreign 
protection, which has done more, probably, 
than all other human causes combined, to 
preserve that Church from decadence and 
ruin ; that another portion of the Eastern 
Christians, the Eoman Catholics, have had 
a longer, and equally efficient, and, for 
them, as valuable a protection, from another 
foreign Power; that when it was announced 
that the British Government could not, for 
the reason assigned, assume a formal and 
settled Protectorate over the other, unpro- 



70 



tected, bodies of the Oriental Christians, it 
was also declared, (no objection being made 
to the right of such protection,) that it was 
ready to exert its influence in individual 
acts of kindness and care, whenever occa- 
sion for them might arise ; and under this 
provision, many, very many, instances of 
real and cordial protection, of which the 
history may at some future day be written, 
were, during the period of the writer's so- 
journ in Turkey, performed by the British 
Ambassador, in behalf especially of the Ar- 
menians, Syrians and Xestorians. This is 
the first fact. The purport of it is, that 
hitherto, to a very great degree to all. and 
perfectly and completely to some of the 
Churches of the East, an efficient and valua- 
ble European protection has, with the per- 
mission of the Turkish Government, been 
extended, — under which our Eastern breth- 
ren, deeply as they have suffered, have yet 
enjoyed comjjarative rest and security. — The 
second fact is, that while this protection is 
now to be broken up and abandoned, not 
at the requisition of the Sultan, but by the 
instigation and free motion of two of the 
Christian Governments, for purposes of their 
own ; and while even the old Treaties, which 
substantially accord the right of it to Eus- 
sia in particular, (of France we shall speak 
hereafter,) are to be revised and modified 
accordingly the change is effected, solelv 



71 



and singly, for the purpose of strengthen- 
ing and rendering permanent, if possible, 
the Mohammedan Power, against which 
these Governments have practically declar- 
ed, by their past acts, that they think pro- 
tection of the Christians necessary. From 
this fact it results, that, while the renewed 
independence of Mohammedanism makes 
the protection of our Eastern brethren 
more than ever needful, since, by the 
strengthening of the Ottoman Government, 
the power of harming them is increased, 
they are, at the same moment, and by the 
same act, left destitute of all reliable aid 
from man. — It will cap the climax of this 
sad conclusion, if we add, as a third fact, 
that this resuscitation of the decaying 
body of Mohammedanism, and this unfra- 
ternal desertion of the Eastern Christians, 
are undertaken by the Christian Govern- 
ments of Western Europe, for the purely 
selfish purpose of preserving themselves 
from a probably imaginary harm through 
the over-growth of Russia, who has as 
much right to grow as they, and thus far 
has grown as fairly. For private, political 
and mercenary purposes, not only is Rus- 
sia, one of the great forces of Christianity, 
to be crippled by her Christian sisters of 
the West, but she is to be forced, with 
them and two other Christian Nations, 
Austria and Prussia, into a league for sus- 



72 



taining Mohammedanism in the only way 
in which it ca»n now be sustained — by the 
support of Turkey ; — and also for abandon- 
ing Eastern Christianity to the unmitigated 
domination of its freer and stronger rule. 

For all this unfaithfulness to truth and 
interested support of error, the poor com- 
pensation is offered of advice, to be given 
to the Sultan, from time to time, as need 
arises, in favor of his Christian subjects, 
— which advice he will follow so far as he 
may see fit ; and whenever he does not see 
fit to follow it, the interference must end : 
otherwise his sovereignty is infringed upon, 
and the very object of the compact receives 
detriment. If this is not to abandon the 
oppressed Christians of the East to the 
" uncovenanted mercies" of the Moham- 
medans, we have missed altogether a right 
estimation of the real nature of the bar- 
gain. It is the more exceptionable, if we 
remember, as has been alread3 r intimated, 
that the protection which has been hitherto 
accorded to the Christians by foreign Pow- 
ers, has been given with the free allow- 
ance of the Porte ; and, in two instances, has 
been based upon Treaties entered into by 
the Sultan himself, and ratified by him as a 
Sovereign Prince. Prance and England, 
one would think, might afford to limit their 
interpretation of his sovereignty by his 
own past acts as sovereign ; but it seems 



73 

that, to suit their purpose, he must be more 
sovereign than he himself has claimed to 
be. This is a gratuitous injury to Eastern 
Christianity. 

But it will be said, that whatever the Five 
Powers combined, forming, as they will, 
the united Protectorate of the Ottoman 
Empire, may choose to advise, the Sultan 
will hardly venture to depart from. To 
this we might reply, as before, that he must 
be left free, entirely free, to depart from it 
if he pleases, or he is no longer sovereign. 
Such is the unfortunate predicament in 
which England and France are placing 
themselves with regard to Turkey, that 
they can promise nothing, absolutely noth- 
ing, of benefit as certain to result to the 
Eastern Christians from the united Protec- 
torate which they propose. Let it be re- 
membered, that this new Protectorate is for 
the Turks, not for the Christians. The 
first point, the essential point, the prime 
object, is to sustain the sovereignty and 
independence of Turkey. All possible 
good to the Christians must yield to that. 
If, that secured, they can gain any benefit, 
well. If not, they are sacrificed. This is 
the compact, if we understand it. 

But, unquestionably, the united influence 

of Europe, or of its leading Powers, is 

strong. If it were not limited to advice 

acting upon the free-will of another, it 

7 



74 



would be irresistible. Turkey must yield 
to their dictation. It is free, by the terms 
of the union and the nature of the object 
in view, to accept or reject their counsel. 
Still, we are not indisposed to trace out the 
probable operation of the agency, such as 
it is. We doubt whether it is likely to 
reach even so far as " good and well-meant 
advice." It is to be borne in mind that the 
Powers are to act in unison, the course to 
be pursued being a united advisory action. 
Let us forecast what it will come to, how it 
will operate in practice. 

But we have first to ask a question, which 
our readers may think the Dispatch of the 
French Minister renders unnecessary, but 
which, in our mind, is one of great moment. 
What does France propose to do with her 
own Protectorate of the Oriental Eoman 
Catholics, which has been secured to her by 
long custom and by repeated Treaties? 
Why, abandon it, of course, the unsophisti- 
cated reader will answer — abandon it to the 
interest of Europe, the establishment of the 
sovereignty of the Sultan, which it, as much 
as the corresponding Protectorate of Eussia, 
has hitherto encroached upon. M. Drouyn 
de L'Huys says, (though it is hard to see 
how he can draw such a sense from Count 
Nesselrode's Dispatch,) that he understands 
it to claim that the Greeks shall still retain 
all the privileges of the Eussian Protecto- 



75 

rate ; and lie endeavors in vain to find 
"how the independence and sovereignty of 
the Sublime Porte could co-exist with such 
a system." Very well. But no more can 
that sovereignty and independence co-exist 
with the exercise of a similar Protectorate, 
on the part of France, over another portion 
of the Sultan's Christian subjects. France, 
then, abandons her Protectorate. It is a 
necessary inference from her official lan- 
guage, and, indeed, from her whole position 
in this war. 

We have, then, another question to ask; 
and we will preface it, though reluctantly, 
for we do not wish to deal in suspicions, 
with the frank admission that we have very 
little confidence in the French Emperor in 
this matter. Able, astute, sagacious, if we 
may admit the latter word with an ingredi- 
ent of craft in the sense of it, he undoubted- 
ly is. He understands France and French- 
men, and he sees the full purport and bent 
of his own designs. But we believe that 
England has been drawn into this war un- 
wisely, by the superior dexterity of the 
French Emperor, who began the trouble by 
his arbitrary claims respecting the Holy 
Places, was foiled by the energy and influ- 
ence of Russia at the Porte, and thereupon 
proceeded, by diplomatic means, to inveigle 
England into a league against the best 
friend she had on the Continent. We con- 



76 

template her position with sorrow and dis- 
may. We fear she is yet to repent, as in 
dust and ashes, for her error. We wish 
her well as our mother-land. We have 
loved and reverenced her with the fervor 
of youth and the juster appreciation of riper 
years. But we greatly fear that she has 
fallen into the snare of evil counsels, and is 
yet to suffer for it severely. It would be a 
relief to us if we could see her position 
differently, for our very regard for her 
touches us with the profoundest grief as we 
now contemplate it. 

Our second question is, What is France 
now doing with her Protectorate ? Why, 
exercising it, to the same extent as ever. 
It is a fact eminently worthy of notice, that, 
while the Eussian influence is suspended by 
the war, and the Greek Christians are left 
without the protection to which they have 
been accustomed for near a century, the 
Latin seceders from them and from the 
other Oriental Communions are aided as 
vigorously as ever by France ; that, at 
the very moment Avhen M. Drouyn de 
L'Huys declares, in his Dispatch to Baron 
de Bourqueney, (the one already quoted,) 
that "the Articles of the Treaty of Kut- 
chuk Kainarji, [1774,] relative to religious 
protection, [by Russia,] have become, in 
consequence of an abusive interpretation, 
the original cause of the struggle now 



77 

maintained by Turkey," and that that 
Treaty must be revised in such a sense 
" that no Power shall claim the right of ex- 
ercising an official Protectorate over the 
subjects of the Sublime Porte, no matter to 
which Eite they belong."' France herself, 
by virtue of a similar Treaty, is exercising 
an official and active Protectorate over sub- 
jects of the Sublime Porte, of the Latin 
Eite, and has shown no disposition to re- 
linquish it. Our firm persuasion is, that 
she has no intention to relinquish it; that, 
after having clestroved the Protectorate of 
Eussia, she will find means to maintain her 
own unimpaired, perhaps secretly, as a com- 
pensation from the Sultan for services ren- 
dered to him. At all events, she maintains 
it as yet, and manifests no inclination to 
suspend it ; and this, although she is fight- 
ing the battles of the Sultan, in defence of 
his sovereignty impugned by a demand on 
the part of Eussia for a Protectorate much 
less formal and much less extensive than 
that which has anciently been accorded to 
France. She is daily, with one hand, break- 
ing down the independence of Turkey at 
the very point where she pretends to uphold 
it with the other. Pledged by her vows to as- 
sist the Sultan in his refusal of a Protectorate 
to Eussia, as being inconsistent with the 
co-existence of his independence and sover- 
eignty, she persists in exercising, at the 



78 



same time, a Protectorate of precisely the 
same character, for the same object, but 
larger and stronger in its guarantees than 
the demands of Eussia required. This is 
French faith, as illustrated in the present 
instance. We repose no trust in it. 

Even in connection with the war itself, 
France has exercised her Protectorate with 
extraordinary vigor. The Sultan had de- 
termined to expel from Constantinople all 
Greeks not his own subjects: we used to 
reckon that there were about 30,000 such 
in the city, belonging chiefly to the king- 
dom of Greece. He, no doubt justly, fear- 
ed lest they should raise sedition and tu- 
mult in Constantinople/ Besides, he had 
suspended diplomatic relations with the 
Government of which most of them were 
subjects. France at once demanded that 
an exception be made in favor of all who 
belonged to the Latin Eite, Greeks, chiefly 
of the Islands, who are Eoman Catholics. 
The Sultan, in the exercise of his sover- 
eignty, after some wavering as usual, final- 
ly declined to yield the point. His objec- 
tion was a just and valid one, — that, in the 
universal hatred of the Greek race to the 
Turks, he could trust none who were not 
subject to him. The French Ambassador, 
in the exercise of his right of protection, 
at the same moment that the troops of his 
master were landing on the shores of Tur- 



79 

key to defend the sovereignty of the Sultan 
against the encroachments of his Northern 
neighbor upon the very same ground, 
"took fire," (we quote from the London 
Times, which is not likely, in speaking of 
the errors of a friend, to overstate them,) 
u demanded nothing short of the dismissal 
of the Turkish Ministers, on whom the con- 
duct of the war and the existence of the 
Empire depend, and vowed that, if satisfac- 
tion were refused, he should embark, with 
his whole Embassy, in forty-eight hours." 
The affair was finally settled by the Sultan 
abandoning his edict, and allowing all 
Greeks to remain who were not under 
charge of actual conspiracy against the 
Porte. The sovereignty of the Sultan 
fairly yielded to the Protectorate of France, 
when France was in arms to preserve it 
from similar encroachments elsewhere. This 
is French faith, as it is showing itself in this 
direful war. We will not trust our own 
pen to comment upon it. We will leave 
the work to the friendly offices of the Times, 
(May 12.) — " England and France have sent 
their fleets and armies to Turkey because 
they deny to Russia the right, which she 
claims, of l protecting' a certain portion of 
the Eastern population professing the tenets 
of the Eastern Church, and they have repeat- 
edly declared that such a pretension is in- 
consistent with the sovereignty and inde- 



80 

pendence of tlie Sultan. The Sultan, in 
the exercise of his sovereignty, is advised 
— as we think, very ill-advised— to expel 
the Hellenic population from his dominions ; 
upon which one of the Ambassadors sent 
to Constantinople expressly to vindicate the 
independence of the Porte, puts in a claim 
in favor of one sect of Greeks, which is 
quite as inconsistent with the authority of 
the Sultan as the demand of Prince Men- 
schikoff himself. This comparison is so ob- 
vious that it disposes of the whole question, 
and reduces the dispute ad absurdum" 
The Times may now add, if it pleases, that 
the same inconsistency prevails to the 
present hour, though without such violent 
explosions, which are rarities in diplomatic 
life, and that it is likely to continue, for 
aught we now see, ad infinitum. Recently, 
upon the occurrence of one of those sad 
quarrels between the Greeks and Latins at 
Jerusalem which dishonor the Christian 
name, the French Consul lent all his influ- 
ence, as usual, to the Latin side, while the 
Greeks had not a friend to say a word for 
them at the Porte.* 

* While these pages are undergoing revision for the 
press, we have received an account of another event no 
less significant. France applies to Turkey for a Firman, 
authorizing the erection of a Latin Church at Beit Jalah, 
in the Holy Land. To grant it is a violation of the Mo- 
hammedan law which forbids the erection of Christian 
Churches on new sites. Yet, under the influence of the 



81 

The interest which, the Church of Eome 
feels in this war, and the enlistment of her 
sympathies in behalf of the Western Allies, 
have become more and more apparent as the 
war has proceeded. The indications to this 
effect are too numerous even to be named 
here, individually and with precision. We 
have friendly communications between the 
Sultan and the Pope ; an Allocution by the 
latter, in which he expresses the hope that 
the result of the war will be favorable to the 
cause of Catholicism in the East; the de- 
cided opinions of the leading Eoman Cath- 
olic Journals, the Tablet and E Univers, for 
example; and the mandemens of the French 
Bishops, breathing the fire of intense hatred 
towards Eussia, as the great enemy of the 
Church of Eome. The Archbishop of Paris 
ventures even to predict that the overthrow 
of the strength of Eussia will prepare the 
way for the universal domination of the 
Papacy. The same style is held by Latin 
Bishops in other countries. The Eoman 
Catholic Archbishop in Quebec, in his Pas- 
French Protectorate, not only is a Firman granted, but the 
Pasha of Jerusalem is instructed to purchase and present 
apiece of ground for the building. The date of this 
document is as recent as the " 1st of September." A 
11 Latin" Church is one that is to be served by European, 
probably, in this instance, by French, ecclesiastics. It 
will be remembered, that one of the repudiated demands 
of Prince Menschikoff was, for permission to erect a 
, Russian Church at Jerusalem. 



82 



toral Letter asking the prayers of the Faith- 
ful, speaks after this manner: "It is the 
cause of the Church which has been confided 
to the armies of France and England; and 
their success, while defending Turkey 
against an unjust aggression on the part of 
her enemy, will, at the same time, secure to 
the Church the two-fold advantage of di- 
minishing schismatical influence in the East, 
and of establishing Catholicism on a more 
favorable and independent footing." All 
that we said, in the former Essay, upon the 
relations of the Church of Rome to the pre- 
sent war, has been abundantly confirmed 
by subsequent revelations. It is placed be- 
yond a doubt, that that Church looks upon 
the success of the Allies as her own triumph ; 
and so beyond a doubt, unless Providence 
interpose, in a way now unknown, it will 
prove to be. Having seen much of Latin 
Ecclesiastics in the East, and learned much 
of their views on these subjects, we have 
long since come to know that the Church of 
Rome regards the strength and firmness of 
Russia as the chief obstacle in the way of 
her universal dominion. Our own opinion 
is, that they present a more formidable bar- 
rier than the English and American 
Churches combined; — but a detail of the 
reasons for this opinion would carry us too 
far away from the main track of our present 
discussion. Suffice it to say, by way of 



83 

friendly caution, that the Protestant sym- 
pathizers with Turkey in this war, would do 
well to look to it who are their companions, 
and to what cause they are giving the influ- 
ence of their good wishes, and, in some 
instances, of their tongues and of their 
pens. 

But we have yet to show the probable 
operation of the New, Grand, United, Anglo- 
Russo-Austro-Prusso-French Protectorate, 
so far as it bears upon the Christians. "We 
will do it in as few words as the nature and 
importance of the subject will admit of. 
These five Nations represent four diverse 
religious systems. France and Austria are 
Roman Catholic ; Russia, Greek ; England, 
Anglican; Prussia, Lutheran. '-France, 
Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia," 
says M. Drouyn de L'Huys, "shall give 
their mutual concurrence to obtain from the 
initiative of the Ottoman Government, the 
consecration and observance of the religious 
privileges of the different religious com- 
munities, and turn to account, in the recip- 
rocal interests of their co-religionists, the 
generous intentions manifested by His 
Majesty the Sultan, without any infringe- 
ment upon the dignity and independence 
of his crown resulting therefrom." This 
is the scheme. Let us now see the machine 
at work. 

To take a familiar example. The dis- 



84 



putes concerning the Holy Places in and 
near Jerusalem are an annual, not to say a 
perennial, calamity. Let us suppose they 
come up for adjustment before the Sublime 
Porte. Greeks are ranged on one side ; 
Latins on the other. The former make 
their private representation to the Eussian 
Minister. They plead their cause before 
him, and ask his assistance at the Council 
in their behalf. The Latins appeal secretly 
to their ancient Protector, the Representa- 
tive of France. He also listens, and per- 
haps he promises. The members of the 
Protectorate assemble, Ambassadors of 
England and France, Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary of Russia, Internuncio of Austria, 
Charge of Prussia. They are told of this 
great question, seriously affecting the in- 
terests of two portions of the Sultan's Chris- 
tian subjects. " No Power," say Lord 
Clarendon and M. Drouyn de L'Huys, "no 
Power shall claim the right of exercising 
an official Protectorate over the subjects of 
the Sublime Porte, no matter to which Rite 
they belong." Russia cannot protect the 
Greeks ; nor France, on the basis of this 
scheme, the Latins. The Five United 
Powers are to "give their mutual concur- 
rence to obtain from the initiative of the 
Ottoman Government the consecration and 
observance of the religious privileges of 
the different religious communities," and to 



85 



" turn to account, in the reciprocal interests 
of their co-religionists, the generous inten- 
tions of the Sultan. ? ' That is, the religious 
privileges of the Greeks and the religious 
privileges of the Latins are to be sacredly 
preserved through the united agency of 
the European Powers, and the interests of 
both parties to be promoted thereby, — if the 
Sultan sees fit to listen to them. 

They meet and consider the matter. It 
is very much such a meeting as would be 
that of the Anglican and Latin Bishops in 
England to watch over, protect and pro- 
mote, by mutual concurrence, the reciprocal 
interests of their respective co-religionists 
in that country. Russia speaks. She shows 
by infallible proofs the ancient right of the 
Greeks to the guardianship of the Holy 
Places. They are, in truth, their property. 
She urges their claims as the only just 
ground of judgment. On the other side 
rises France. She talks of certain privi- 
leges granted from time to time to the 
Latins by the Sultans of Turkey. She 
bases upon them a right and a claim. Aus- 
tria sides with France. England and Prus- 
sia, we will suppose, as they occupy the 
position of neutrals in the question, view it 
in the light of justice alone, and award 
judgment to the Greeks. What is the re- 
sult of the Council — three being on one 
side, and two on the other ? There is none. 



86 

There is no united action. There is no 
" mutual concurrence." There is irreconci- 
lable division. 

Now, hardly a question can be presented 
respecting the Eastern Christians which will 
not evolve the same fundamental differen- 
ces of opinion, for most of the questions 
involve religious antagonism. Let us sup- 
pose, then, that the Protectors, despairing 
of unanimity in the sphere of religion, 
leave all such questions to the unaided wis- 
dom and mercy of the Turks, while they 
confine themselves to securing civil privi- 
leges for their brethren. What greater 
likelihood of " mutual concurrence " is 
there at this point, between the Eepresenta- 
tives of Governments themselves represent- 
ing such diverse political principles as do 
the Governments of Russia, England, Aus- 
tria, France and Prussia? 

Once more. Suppose they would lighten 
the burden of Mohammedan misrule which 
weighs so heavily upon the Christians, by 
recommending measures of relief. We 
speak now of exactions, impositions, and 
insults that are illegal, even under the Tur- 
kish laws, of which the Christians, especially 
in the interior, suffer a tenfold share. They 
must do it, according to their compact, in 
such a way that the Ottoman Government 
shall have the initiative. Under the united 
wisdom which appears in the English and 



87 

French Dispatches, the Government is to 
grant them, and then the Powers are to 
obtain them. All such reforms are to ema- 
nate from the Sultan in order to be salutary 
and efficacious, and then, if their accom- 
plishment requires foreign assistance, the 
Five Powers are to give good and well- 
meant advice. Happy Christians! how 
must your hearts throb with gratitude as 
you contemplate the blessings of the New 
United European Protectorate! It will 
turn to account in your interest the " gen- 
erous intentions manifested by the Sultan," 
— of course, after they are manifested. It 
will give "good and well-meant advice" af- 
ter measures for your benefit shall have 
emanated from the Ottoman Government, 
in case their accomplishment needs foreign 
assistance; and after the Porte shall have 
initiated the consecration and observance 
of your religious privileges, your generous 
Protectors will secure them ! The atten- 
tive reader will see that in allowing, as we 
have done all along, that the Protectorate 
may suggest and advise salutary measures 
for the Eastern Christians, we have allow- 
ed more than the Dispatches claim. They 
make the first step to be Turkish through- 
out, and the agency of the Protectors is to 
encourage it when it is taken. But we will 
proceed as we have begun, with our chari- 
table allowance of more than the plan pro- 



88 

poses. They may advise and recommend 
independently and primarily, we will be- 
lieve. 

Such, then, is the scheme offered to the 
hopes of the world. If the Times regards 
the present position of France as reducing 
affairs ad absurdum, to what rhetorical ex- 
tremity would the New Grand Protectorate 
reduce them ? Verily, there is but a step 
from the sublime to the ridiculous. The 
idea of such a Protectorate approaches the 
one. Its application in practice touches 
close upon the other. The whole scheme 
is so thoroughly absurd and impracticable, 
that it is difficult to imagine it to be any- 
thing more than the cover of an arritre 
pensee on the part of France, while England 
is alarmed into the war. and into such pre- 
posterous schemes as this, by working upon 
that peculiar infirmity (for Nations, as well 
as individuals, have their infirmities) which 
has marked her whole history as a kingdom, 
— a quick jealousy of the growth and ac- 
quisitions of other Nations, — an infirmity 
springing, perhaps, from another still deep- 
er — a singular fondness for acquiring her- 
self. 

The Dispatch alludes to the " generous 
intentions" of the Sultan. There can be 
no doubt that the present ruler of Turkey, 
amiable and harmless as he is, wishes well 
to all his subjects. But he can carry noth- 



89 



ing against the opposition of the religious 
orders of Islam, unless he has, as now, for- 
eign bayonets to support him. If he should 
venture so far as to issue decrees favorable 
to the Christians, they would not be executed 
by his subordinates throughout the Empire, 
unless there were agents of the Five Pow- 
ers at every point, prepared to follow up 
the decree by attending to its operation. 
The great advantage of the past system has 
been, that, whenever Eussia obtained any 
favor for the Greeks by her influence at the 
Porte, she has seen to their securing the 
benefit of it, by instructing her consular 
agents all over the Empire, to watch the ex- 
ecution of the favorable enactment in detail. 
And so also France, in her sphere ; and 
England in her occasional acts of kindness, 
but with less of vigor and success, from 
their being only occasional, and not the out- 
growths of a system ; and so also Austria 
and Prussia: for all the great European 
Powers have mingled in this business of 
protection whenever they have had a mind 
to it. This is the only mode that can avail, 
the only way in which the Eastern Chris- 
tians can be really benefited ; for a decree 
of the Sultan contrary to the prejudices of 
his people is a dead letter, if left to itself. 
His Ministers at Constantinople, and still 
more the Provincial Eulers, find no difficul- 
ty in evading it. Nothing, we can testify, 
9 



90 

from a large observation on this point, is 
more common. Indeed, it is not an infre- 
quent thing for the Porte itself to send into 
the interior two sets of Firmans on the same 
subject: one, publicly announced, for the 
gratification of Europe; the other, secret 
and contradictory, representing the real 
views and wishes of the Porte. There was 
an instance of this in the dispute between 
Eussia and France about the Holy Places, 
out of which the present war has risen, — 
as we have noted in the first Essay. 
But whatever Eussia gained in Constanti- 
nople, she caused, through the watchful- 
ness of her agents, to be carried out over 
all the Empire, — or the Porte must answer 
for it. And so of France. And so of the 
other Powers. 

But now we have a Protectorate pro- 
posed, — not of the Christians, be it again 
remembered, but of Turkey, — whose mem- 
bers can hardly, by any possibility, come 
to an amicable conclusion among themselves, 
where the Christians are concerned. Next, 
if they do succeed, it is left entirely to the 
will of the Sultan whether he shall adopt 
their conclusion. Third, if he does adopt it, 
they must leave to him the execution of it, 
or they infringe upon his sovereignty. 
We have admitted his good disposition, 
kind and humane, but not forcible and effi- 
cient. We have no right to suppose that 
when relieved of all strong urgency on the 



91 

part of Europe, lie will offend the mass of 
his people, who are still thorough Mussul- 
mans, and perhaps endanger his throne, by 
new and large concessions to the Christians. 
He has no independence of mind to devise, 
nor strength of will to execute, beyond the 
necessity created by an outward pressure. 
The whole scheme, then, is utterly imprac- 
ticable, and can result in no possible benefit 
to the Eastern Christians beyond what the 
private will of the Sultan would enact with- 
out the interference of the European Pow- 
ers ; and that will will never enact, and 
cannot execute, anything unfavorable to 
Mohammedanism, if left to itself. Add to 
this, that the present Sultan, well disposed 
as he is, is infirm in health, and holds his 
life by a very slight tenure, while his bro- 
ther, the heir-apparent, now in the vigor 
of early manhood, promises, if he ever comes 
to the throne, to be the tool of the old Mus- 
sulman party, whose hatred of the Chris- 
tians is as intense as ever, and we have a 
fair, and, in miniature, a complete picture of 
the probabilities of the future as developed 
by the New, Grand, United Protectorate. 

All that we have said, has proceeded upon 
the supposition that the several Powers will 
be^true to their bargain, and that no one of 
them wi]l seek to establish a separate and 
individual influence at the Porte. If, how- 
ever, |.hev should so far yield to their ancient 
\ * 10 



92 

habits as severally to press the Turkish 
Government with private representations, 
the old evil would return, without the ad- 
vantage — no one having an acknowledged 
right of protection— of gaining any good to 
the Christians by it. Indeed, it is not an 
improbable iilsue, that the assemblies of the 
United Protectorate would quickly become 
the scene of intrigue, discord and strife, to 
be followed, perhaps, by an explosion that 
would drive the hostile parts further asun- 
der than ever, and rend Turkey to her base. 
This would be an inglorious, but not a 
strange, termination of a coalition created 
vi et armis. And so w r ould end one of the 
" guarantees for a stable peace" which the 
late Dispatches of the English and French 
Ministers have proclaimed to the world. 
Were it at all probable that Eussia would 
yield to the terms prescribed, we might still 
foresee the u beginning of the end." In any 
event, we can repose little confidence in the 
result of an attempt to curb the free action 
of independent States, and to force them 
into an unnatural alliance, for the support of 
a Power which no one of them loves. Their 
perverted counsel, we may be sure, will re- 
turn in defeat upon their own project. Were 
they still to act separately, each in its indi- 
vidual sphere, in the free pursuit of its own 
policy, and the independent exercise of its 
legitimate influence, their mutual jealousies. 



93 

like contending forces, might, as they have 
done in times past, neutralize each other, 
and Turkey might stand secure in the equi- 
poise of their oppositions. If she had been 
left to herself, she would undoubtedly have 
yielded, without war, to the demand of 
Eussia ; _ and each of the other Powers could 
have gained, by a similar demand, a corres- 
ponding and equal advantage for itself. But 
now, by a joint action to support her totter- 
ing fabric, they may be, unwittingly to 
themselves, yet in the fathomless counsels 
of the Divine Mind, certainly, hastening her 
downfall. Even the proposed Protectorate. 
then, is not without its possible consolation. 
It may. if it should ever be consummated, 
only insure the more speedy redemption 
of Eastern Christianity ; and the political 
ambition of England and France, and the 
spiritual ambition of Home, may alike find 
that they have overleaped themselves, and 
fallen on the other side" 



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